171–180 of 273 posts
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This argument always strikes me as weird given that we know domestic social networks are doing precisely this, adjusting their algorithms to promote or suppress things for political reasons, but I have yet to see any claim that TikTok has ever done this, only that they could .
Please excuse my ignorance here, but how do we know that?
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TikTok is the worst "brain junk food" platform I've seen. Sometimes people forward me videos from TikTok that have some horizontal video at the top (the one you are supposed to watch, apparently?), and then completely unrelated video game footage as the vertical "background". I don't know if it is intended to hook into some sort of attention hack where they abuse the fact that humans are stimulated by movement and co…
My TikTok is filled with electrical engineering, various forms of activism, and so on. I've never seen anything like what you describe, and I've used it a lot. When I first started using it, I noticed a lot of dancing and singing (by very talented people), but those types of videos disappeared quite quickly.
In execution, I really don't like how much it tries to hotwire our brains to scroll endlessly/seek attention so it can sneak ads in between. I also don't like how so much of it is geared toward instant gratification.
Will we someday feel the same way about social media that we do about tobacco companies? "People willingly addicting themselves to something for the profit of a corporation" sounds dystopian but we've been here for years...
I don't think it is just about TikTok being capable of spying on foreign users; my opinion is that it is more about TikTok's propaganda potential, i.e. how it can be used to manipulate narratives in the most subtle way against U.S.'s national interest. Imagine the case where the U.S. government would like the (western) world to form certain sentiments on the current regional conflicts that are aligned with its own in…
Propaganda is widely used on social media. Why focus on TikTok? Other countries have laws and agencies to protect against propaganda; the US doesn't bother. I doubt the propaganda concern is driving political will.
I haven't heard a good explanation yet for whether this is even legal. It seems like a textbook example of an unconstitutional bill of attainder. You'd have to ban TikTok based on something it does , and any such law would impact a lot of other companies too. Or I guess you could ban all Chinese software using trade laws, but that has even bigger ramifications.
I have no problem as far as handling it like a trade issue. China doesn't allow such social media networks from the US. I got no problem banning theirs.
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>Is that really on the table? If yes, then it's bat-s*it insane, it's maybe rude to call it that but there's no better word to describe it. Not really. That might be the maximum sentence but the chance that a kid who's downloaded tiktok using a vpn of getting anywhere near that is near zero. See: https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...
Just like the MPAA and RIAA never would go after little old grandmas for their love savings just for downloading an mp3.....
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That's pretty funny. TikTok is literally banned in China, along with Facebook, YouTube and all Google, Wikipedia, Twitter, and even Github. There is an actual firewall blocking access, the use of a non-government controlled VPN is a crime. Your iCloud must be stored in China. If you see a post on any social media outlet other than Weibo/WeChat/DouYen/TenCent (which are heavily censored), they are under gov control. T…
Yes, China is a nation that bans thing and censors things, something that in America we at least used to pretend was un-American. Are you taking them for a role model? Or just pointing out the hypocrisy? Either way, I do not intend to learn lessons on governance from the CCP.
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Sounds like something out of 1984 to me. “We better ban all the news sources that aren’t approved by the state!” That’s going to push the USA into becoming a totalitarian state. I’m against that, I prefer free access to information with all the warts that come with that as well. I don’t want to be tools what the state approved facts are, because that can be warped in the future when China isn’t a threat or another po…
I'm not sure that the 1A can scale properly for modernity, though. It was written two hundred years ago by men in a different world, without broadcast propaganda that can reach billions in seconds, dark money financing every major politician, a corrupt Supreme Court, and capitalists able to freely convert billions into political speech. Put it all together and what you have isn't a vibrant democracy with a bunch of d…
I also dislike the weird double speak here, where you argue that to save democracy we can't trust the people. Maybe you are knee deep into the thought bubble you mention too. (Not saying this as an accusation, more so as a sanity check )
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I'm not sure that the 1A can scale properly for modernity, though. It was written two hundred years ago by men in a different world, without broadcast propaganda that can reach billions in seconds, dark money financing every major politician, a corrupt Supreme Court, and capitalists able to freely convert billions into political speech. Put it all together and what you have isn't a vibrant democracy with a bunch of d…
> I'm not sure that the 1A can scale properly for modernity, though. I agree. I think the modern-day challenge is not that one cannot speak freely, but that their voice cannot compete with institution-sponsored propaganda machines --- after all, humans have limited attention. The situation is arguably worse because it suppresses free speech without being appear to suppress it.
I don't think it is just about TikTok being capable of spying on foreign users; my opinion is that it is more about TikTok's propaganda potential, i.e. how it can be used to manipulate narratives in the most subtle way against U.S.'s national interest. Imagine the case where the U.S. government would like the (western) world to form certain sentiments on the current regional conflicts that are aligned with its own in…
Sounds like something out of 1984 to me. “We better ban all the news sources that aren’t approved by the state!” That’s going to push the USA into becoming a totalitarian state. I’m against that, I prefer free access to information with all the warts that come with that as well. I don’t want to be tools what the state approved facts are, because that can be warped in the future when China isn’t a threat or another po…