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EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

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Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#111

Post by dqv »

tmnvdb wrote: post #99
onei wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Tiktok genuinely manipulated by the CCP? I could never quite tell if that was merely scaremongering and hypothesising by American politicians, or based on evidence of past transgressions.

There is good evidence that topics the CCP does not like are significantly underrepresented compared to other social media platforms. I would add that if you know the CCP you would be extremely surprised if they did not take such an opportunity for information warfare.

You can't say "there is good evidence" and then not provide the evidence. If you're talking about the study about hash tag counts, that's not good evidence. https://www.cato.org/blog/lies-damned-lies-statistics-mislea...

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#112

Post by jazzyjackson »

mmooss wrote: post #108
uludag wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically this is exactly why I think TikTok is so important. Obviously every media site is used for manufacturing content, from NYT to Facebook. Also, obviously the US government has a say in what gets published and promoted. Wouldn't it be good then to have checks and balances to this, by having media not under the US government supervision? Unless are you suggesting that the US government doesn't misinform the pu…

> obviously the US government has a say in what gets published and promoted That's not at all obvious to me. On what grounds, moral or legal, should the US government tell anyone what to publish or promote?

I read what you quoted as a matter of fact statement, not an assertion of what is ethically righteous

But with that, I don't agree that it's a fact, maybe the FCC regulates what you broadcast on radio and TV, but if you don't take federal funding, the government doesn't really have a pull in what is created or prompted AFAIK. Journalists in the press pool may trade subservience for access but that's about it.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#113

Post by gunian »

cship2 wrote: post #105
tmnvdb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are glancing over the fact that American media platforms are not really controlled by the US government except for legal restrictions on hate speech and violence, and that there is an extremely diverse set of voices that can be heard on the 'American' (or rather non-Chinese) internet. It is also not clear to me how TikTok is supposed to provide better "checks and balances" just because it is owned and manipulated…

>You are glancing over the fact that American media platforms are not really controlled by the US government except for legal restrictions on hate speech and violence, and that there is an extremely diverse set of voices that can be heard on the 'American' (or rather non-Chinese) internet. Think Binney, Snowden, Assange would probably disagree with you.

It's a cool phenomena tbh if I was rich enough to go to college I would love to do a thesis on it

We know both China and the US are nation states with global ambitions so it would be logical for both to use digital platforms to surveil and perform social engineering.

We also have had whistleblowers on both sides that have come forward and said this is a common practice. We also know based on simple game theory it is in the interest of any nation state to do so not just the US or China

But even on a site like HN that presents itself as rational and factual the sentiment is the US does not do any surveillance or social engineering.

And for the life of me I just don't understand why maybe nationalism? Or the aforementioned social engineering being so effective? But it is so cool to see

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#114

Post by arminiusreturns »

Damn the servile simp responses here are revealing. They are setting precedence and will use this on other things. Yes TikTok and many apps are used by many hostile foreign governments (Israel/Unit 8200 for example) (btw, RedNote got it's big boost when backed by Israeli investor Yuri Milner and his firm DST) for many psyop types...

That doesn't mean you get to control what Americans can do on their devices.

Boiling the frog...

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#115

Post by [deleted] »

cship2 wrote: post #105
tmnvdb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are glancing over the fact that American media platforms are not really controlled by the US government except for legal restrictions on hate speech and violence, and that there is an extremely diverse set of voices that can be heard on the 'American' (or rather non-Chinese) internet. It is also not clear to me how TikTok is supposed to provide better "checks and balances" just because it is owned and manipulated…

>You are glancing over the fact that American media platforms are not really controlled by the US government except for legal restrictions on hate speech and violence, and that there is an extremely diverse set of voices that can be heard on the 'American' (or rather non-Chinese) internet. Think Binney, Snowden, Assange would probably disagree with you.

[deleted]

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#116

Post by gunian »

dqv wrote: post #111
tmnvdb wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is good evidence that topics the CCP does not like are significantly underrepresented compared to other social media platforms. I would add that if you know the CCP you would be extremely surprised if they did not take such an opportunity for information warfare.

You can't say "there is good evidence" and then not provide the evidence. If you're talking about the study about hash tag counts, that's not good evidence. https://www.cato.org/blog/lies-damned-lies-statistics-mislea...

This is actually so cool it's the first study I have seen that tries to use numbers kind of hilarious they did not filter scrapped posts by date to account for TikTok being a newer platform. Some data engineer got a promotion off that study too probably :)

Another thing they did not take into account is the presence of social engineering botnets that can be used by both sides (if record labels have them I'm sure anyone rlse can too)

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#117

Post by fulafel »

quanto wrote: post #100

A former sausage maker here. I (used to) design these engagement/recommendation engines for a large corp, did academic research in the field, went to conferences, etc. In general, I wholehearted support the freedom of speech, and if it were any other case, I would agree with the EFF statement here. However, knowing how the sausages are made, I am reluctantly agreeing with the ban, at least for now. People underestima…

> the fact that such a tool is in a foreign country's arsenal is itself a massive danger to America's national security

This implies people outside the US should relate the same way to Meta, X, etc. (Which seems fine to me, just pointing it out)

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#118

Post by _t9ow »

dqv wrote: post #111
tmnvdb wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is good evidence that topics the CCP does not like are significantly underrepresented compared to other social media platforms. I would add that if you know the CCP you would be extremely surprised if they did not take such an opportunity for information warfare.

You can't say "there is good evidence" and then not provide the evidence. If you're talking about the study about hash tag counts, that's not good evidence. https://www.cato.org/blog/lies-damned-lies-statistics-mislea...

> You can't say "there is good evidence" and then not provide the evidence

Unfortunately very common these days; people who say this probably hope that they won't ever be asked to provide receipts.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#119

Post by tstrimple »

henrikschroder wrote: post #93
unethical_ban wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media algorithms are nuclear bombs for the mind. And they are beholden to whoever holds the detonator. It just happens that a lot of people are happy with China holding it. When the mind-reading algorithm provides each user with their own reality to live in, then we are talking about editorializing. And allowing a communist, anti-Western government direct control over that power does not seem reasonable. inb4…

> rage-inducing profit seekers That pretty accurately describes Twitter and Facebook these days. TikTok, not so much, which you would know if you had used the platform. (Or, you have used the platform, and you prefer rage-inducing crap, so it continues serving that to you ) The proponents of the ban keep mentioning some kind of nefarious "communist" propaganda, and some kind of nefarious privacy data access, but I've…

I don't know... The baseball error videos TikTok keeps sending me are making me want to seize the means of production.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#120

Post by gunian »

hx8 wrote: post #17
lolinder wrote: post #3

> Shutting down communications platforms or forcing their reorganization based on concerns of foreign propaganda and anti-national manipulation is an eminently anti-democratic tactic, one that the US has previously condemned globally. These platforms are fundamentally anti-democratic in their very nature, increasingly so in the age of LLMs. They're places where people buy a voice and the illusion of support by astrot…

It's a shame that this is true for many platforms. Social media platforms have the potential to be incredibly democratic. The more people watch content the more it's shown to other people. Anyone's voice could be amplified in a way that was limited to broadcast networking and printing presses in the past. A million small conversations can occur in such a way that they create a chorus of discussion about public intere…

I blame the Zuck algorithmic feed ruined it all he was my favorite out of all the feudal barons too :(
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