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South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices

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Re: South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices

#101

Post by safog »

kelnos wrote: post #91
Miner49er wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a choice being made by TikTok, this is due to regulations/laws in China. If the US passed laws requiring TikTok to do the same in the US, they would obviously comply.

> If the US passed laws requiring TikTok to do the same in the US, they would obviously comply. Except for the part where that law would end up being declared unconstitutional, and rightly so. Then again, if TikTok has no US ownership, perhaps it would pass constitutional muster. 1A doesn't specifically mention US citizens or US-owned corporations, though, just that that government shall pass no laws abridging the fr…

Curious - why would it be unconstitutional?

There are plenty of laws forcing companies to engage in certain kinds of behavior. The latest I've seen is the beer manufacturing / distribution / sales breakup as a result of the post-prohibition policies. Manufacturers can't distribute, distributors can't sell to consumers and so-on.

I think people might not tolerate such govt interference, but assuming it's law I don't think it'll be unconstitutional.

Re: South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices

#102

Post by Spivak »

pjc50 wrote: post #17
hammock wrote: post #5

The bigger deal (bigger than the tracking that people usually focus on) might be how the algorithm is specifically tuned to reward dumb content in the US, compared to rewarding STEM and other educational content in China. One minute video that explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hus9fWz0RRk Further reading: https://www.opindia.com/2022/07/tiktok-china-engineering-oth...

The US doesn't reward factual programming, that's why the History Channel turned into the Ancient Aliens Channel.

That's nothing to do with the US and more to do with non-sports cable viewership drying up. All the good educational content moved to YouTube and streaming for the larger viewerbase.

Re: South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices

#103

Post by nemothekid »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #79
blopker wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if this claim is true or not, but the person in your first reference is Andrew Schulz. He's a comedian who has already come out to say that he made all that up, and the media just ran with it [0]. [0]: https://youtube.com/shorts/tAV3QkzHC5E

So he made it up thinking it was fake - but now it has been independently shown to be likely true. In which case he made up a conspiracy theory then demonstrated to be accurate when he thought it was a joke. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-passes-sweeping-re... https://www.deseret.com/2022/11/24/23467181/difference-betwe... CBS 60 Minutes Interview with an IT expert just 3 weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com…

The claim isn't fake. But the idea that this is some TikTok plot to poison America is ridiculous and sinophobic. Douyin is happy show low brow garbage to Chinese netizens, just like chinese gaming companies were happy to let teens play video games 24/7. The difference is the Chinese government won't let them.

America could easily do what China did here: enforce regulations on what kind of content social media companies can show minors. Just banning TikTok won't prevent Instagram from running the same playbook on Reels, it's not like Instagram has been the standard for teen mental health in the past 10 years. Douyin isn't educational in China due to the goodness of their hearts, it came from regulation.

The issue is, good luck trying to enforce any sort of corporate regulation in the US.

Re: South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices

#104

Post by gjsman-1000 »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #97
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is almost certainly deliberate. In China, all companies with more than 50 employees are legally obligated to have dedicated Chinese Communist Party representatives overseeing, according to Harvard Business Publishing ( https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/R1403J-HCB-ENG ). Social media companies? They probably have tons of mandatory representatives guiding the system. ByteDance also had a "nominal" 1% ownership ta…

This is a paranoid vision of how China works. TikTok is a private company that wants to make money. If it could make more money by showing Chinese audiences more trashy content, it absolutely would. And in fact, it does show a great deal of mindless content in China. However, as is well known, China has recently been trying to regulate children's use of the internet (e.g., time limits on internet gaming). If companie…

> This is a paranoid vision of how China works.

The more I read about China the more paranoid I get. I don't think they haven't earned it.

Re: South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices

#105

Post by bena »

wildrhythms wrote: post #81
onetimeusename wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a serious issue but underestimated. People in the US believe that the top science and engineering roles should be filled by immigrants which I don't think is sustainable or even a healthy view of education. I am basing this on the huge foreign population of our top schools and the push for H1-B visas. It can be a self fulfilling prophecy if people remove themselves from the running for STEM in earlier…

>People in the US believe that the top science and engineering roles should be filled by immigrants Huh? Anecdotally, I have never heard this sentiment before.

Because he is basing this claim off of his interpretation of his perception.

Re: South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices

#106

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

nemothekid wrote: post #103
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So he made it up thinking it was fake - but now it has been independently shown to be likely true. In which case he made up a conspiracy theory then demonstrated to be accurate when he thought it was a joke. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-passes-sweeping-re... https://www.deseret.com/2022/11/24/23467181/difference-betwe... CBS 60 Minutes Interview with an IT expert just 3 weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com…

The claim isn't fake. But the idea that this is some TikTok plot to poison America is ridiculous and sinophobic. Douyin is happy show low brow garbage to Chinese netizens, just like chinese gaming companies were happy to let teens play video games 24/7. The difference is the Chinese government won't let them. America could easily do what China did here: enforce regulations on what kind of content social media compani…

> sinophobic

How?

Re: South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices

#108

Post by nemothekid »

kelnos wrote: post #87
hutzlibu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a difference, if TikTok would activly try to make the west dumber and china smarter vs. just different rules of those states. The first could be viewed as a attack vs. the latter is a mere choice of the states involved.

Right, and I think it depends on what the intent is. If TikTok's default would be to just promote "dumb" content everywhere (because that's what increases engagement and sells ads or whatever), but the Chinese government is like "no, you're making our citizens dumber; you have to promote 'smart' content in the China market", then that's totally fine. I mean, I don't agree with the level of interference the Chinese go…

>If TikTok's default would be to just promote "dumb" content everywhere (because that's what increases engagement and sells ads or whatever), but the Chinese government is like "no, you're making our citizens dumber; you have to promote 'smart' content in the China market", then that's totally fine.

But that is what happened. The CCP went on a huge clampdown on the newer internet companies around that time that Jack Ma was abducted and passed numerous laws censoring and limiting what people could do online, such as how long teenagers could play video games.

Re: South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices

#109

Post by eternalban »

Kreutzer wrote: post #37
andrewstuart wrote: post #13

It matters which country controls the platform. The recent protests in China have been suppressed by the CCP. No doubt there are close to zero protest videos on TikTok. There are protest videos on YouTube - though anecdotally YouTube management is attempting to suppress them because Google is tightly bound to China. The question is, does it matter if protest videos are shown or hidden on social media? Can the videos…

The actual amount of protests in China were laughably small in comparison to how the state depart... I mean 'free press' in the US portrayed it. Yes, there were reasonable protests against zero-Covid measures, no there was no revolution in progress.

This could be interesting reading for you and others in context of what some Chinese think of Xi regime.

https://www.readingthechinadream.com/deng-yuwen-on-xi-jinpin...

This is not your usual "'free press'" fare and it is noteworthy for the both the designation of China under Xi as "totalitarian" and also its optimistic prediction of a new wave of democratization globally.

What excited the press (...and those whom you imply) was probably that anything happened in Xi's China, and that it happened in multiple places, and that CPC was not entirely successful in suppressing it even while having near total control.

So what is extraordinary about these protests -- something apparently very new in China -- is that they are directed at the cult of personality directly. I just did a google search to see if there ever were demonstrations in China against Mao during his reign. Xi's political game is role-playing some sort of Maoist / Stalinist state with him as maximum leader. He even publicly dismisses former grandees in front of foreign press. How did these Chinese dare to directly call for his removal in protests?

> Yes, there were reasonable protests against zero-Covid measures, no there was no revolution in progress.

"Finally, to borrow an image from Liu Cixin's novel The Three Body Problem, we should be psychologically prepared for Xi's totalitarian rule to enter a dark forest. Xi will rule China for at least another five years. But we should not be too pessimistic. No matter how long Xi stays in power, as I argued above, it is unlikely that another Xi Jinping will emerge after Xi steps down. The good news is that the hassle of fighting the pandemic with the zero-tolerance policy has awakened even more people. When social discontent reaches a tipping point and everyone believes in regime change, then change will come soon."

Re: South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices

#110

Post by johnwheeler »

purpleblue wrote: post #65

I have a fairly large position in Meta because I'm sure that the US government is going to ban TikTok. I think once it spikes from that announcement, it will at least make it back up to over $200, for the time being.

But even if you got in sub $200, a tiktok ban would be a very generous layer of icing on the cake. Same with the metaverse. The core business is still attractive and it’s a good stock.
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