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The TikTok War

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Re: The TikTok War

#321

Post by FooBarWidget »

scottLobster wrote: post #238
FooBarWidget wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I think you're being too paranoid. I see plenty of less-China-critical (not even pro-China) comments get downvoted, and China-critical comments upvoted. Also, CCP shills are a nice myth but they don't operate overseas. The real shills serve a very different purpose: they are hired by local governments to cheat the central government into giving them promotions, by showing the central government comments from "ha…

Oh I'm sure they operate in even greater numbers internally, but I'm equally sure China puts out as much foreign propaganda as they think they can get away with. "Sinophobia" in response to criticism of verified CCP actions in particular seems an attempt to weaponize the current cancel culture in the west. Hell China did likewise to the Mongol tribes for centuries until Genghis Khan came along. It's not like sowing d…

I think it is quite ironic that on the one hand you completely dismiss sinophobia as a concept, and on the other hand you cite pre-Ghenis Khan times as the reason for being wary of 21st century China.

Re: The TikTok War

#322

Post by msbarnett »

ardy42 wrote: post #144
msbarnett wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I consider it quite different, because I know I'm more opposed to the ideology of the CCP than I am of the US. I don’t know that I’m particularly enthused about either country’s ideology, hence my more skeptical view of the idea that any of the major US social media networks are “better”.

> I don’t know that I’m particularly enthused about either country’s ideology, hence my more skeptical view of the idea that any of the major US social media networks are “better”. Could you go into more detail about your thoughts on "[each] country’s ideology" and why you think that makes their social networks (which IMHO are a form of media) roughly equivalently desirable? IMHO, the US does have faults and does do…

> IMHO, the US does have faults and does do bad things, but those bad things are usually domestically controversial (to some degree). Since it's a liberal democracy, that controversy is tolerated, which means there's a path to something better

From the outside, I think Americans generally over-estimate the degree to which modern America is actually a liberal democracy. The tolerated range of speech seems to in reality run a perilously narrow gamut from "neo-conservative" to "arch-neo-conservative", with anything left of the former routinely subject to exercises of state force to attack and undermine that dissent in practice (declarations of turning the nebulous self-applied label of "Antifascist" into a "terror organization", COINTELPRO, etc, etc), regardless of what freedoms are claimed to be enshrined in the US constitution.

And this is merely its internal opposition to liberal democracy; again, even a cursory glance at modern Latin American history demonstrates that the US happily prefers right-wing dictators to democratically elected leftists, if the latter is at all detrimental to the US government's interests.

Re: The TikTok War

#323

Post by addison-lee »

YarickR2 wrote: post #162
addison-lee wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, not all of my friends are attractive and rich.

Neither are mine . I'm not subscribed to IG account of poor ugly disabled anyone, though. Should I feel like self-CCP to me ? Feel guilty about myself ?

So you are completely ok with TikTok filtering out content from ugly, poor or disabled users? Because that is what it sounds like.

Re: The TikTok War

#324

Post by giantrobot »

zzzcpan wrote: post #209
giantrobot wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large "private" companies in China are not private as you would think of them in the West. The Chinese government or the CCP will own outright or through holding companies shares in a company. So even at the most benign the government or CCP will have influence in a company's governance. Executives and upper management will always be outwardly enthusiastic about all Chinese government/CCP talking points and decisions…

It takes a lot to produce and push government propaganda. It would require a tech company to essentially turn into a government run news organization if they were to do it. Which kind of defeats the purpose of even having different businesses, rather than all of them being propaganda producing news outlets.

China's already got multiple overt state-run "news" organizations. So it's not like there's some dearth of China-friendly content readily available. Propaganda also isn't necessarily just content produced by some Ministry of Truth. Simply censoring or "discouraging" negative coverage of China/CCP in state influenced media can be/is propaganda.

That's just "official" propaganda. The CCP's various astroturfing brigades are well documented (see "50 cent army" and "internet navy"). They show up in public forums of all stripes.

TikTok doesn't allow discussion of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Falun Gong, Free Tibet, or anything other topics the CCP deems inappropriate. That censorship is propaganda by omission. Content users see being primary algorithmic makes it trivial to add in pro-CCP or just anti-West content into people's feeds.

Re: The TikTok War

#325

Post by TheOperator »

CogentHedgehog wrote: post #315
TheOperator wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I modded a humble mid-sized subreddit, which was not an LGBT sub, but one where LGBT people occasionally asked LGBT-specific questions. My view of the situation initially was that conservative-minded peolle didn't really hate trans people and they were mostly frustrated by being forced to swallow an idea and being censored if they so much as asked an innocent question and that this is what was making them so upset. S…

Similar experience. I am a reddit mod for a quite large community, and the ugly truth is that a lot of bad-faith arguments are being used to provide cover for simple bullying. This a reality that is deeply uncomfortable for people who share political views with the bullies, but it is the reality on the ground.

Believe me. I have to live with the fact that I tolerated this behavior and enabled a ton of harassment for way too long when I had the ability to stop it. Making a post like this in hackernews I guess is my way of trying to make things right.

So many people told me I had it wrong and I didn't listen.

Re: The TikTok War

#326

Post by andreilys »

cwkoss wrote: post #286
andreilys wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Algorithm and moderation policies are opaque. They can be used to subvert a geopolitical rival and spread discord. It’s pretty trivial to do that, and nobody would be the wiser.

Agree, but doesn't that also apply to Twitter and Facebook?

Incentives for Twitter/FB are to keep advertisers happy.

Incentive for TikTok is to keep the CCP happy.

Given the geopolitical aims and ambitions of the latter, you can see why they aren't comparable.

Re: The TikTok War

#327

Post by CogentHedgehog »

pentae wrote: post #278
CogentHedgehog wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> the_Donald was already long-defunct and had migrated to another platform. The Right got to keep its safe spaces. This is a patently false spin that reveals your obvious bias. Even the most pedestrian research would reveal this sub was pushed out of reddit by the admins and so they set up an alternate forum. I'm always amazed at how people feel the need to push their ideological agenda instead of calling a spade a s…

[dead]

Re: The TikTok War

#328

Post by kbenson »

moreorless wrote: post #288
tw04 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of facebook or snapchat or any of their major stakeholders being involved in mass (or any) industrial espionage. The same can't be said of the Chinese Government. That seems like a pretty distinct reason to be more OK with FB/Insta/Snap than TikTok.

TikTok = Chinese government? That is quite a leap there.

From the article:

All Chinese Internet companies are compelled by the country’s National Intelligence Law to turn over any and all data that the government demands, and that power is not limited by China’s borders. Moreover, this requisition of data is not subject to warrants or courts, as is the case with U.S. government requests for data from Facebook or any other entity;

Their privacy policy notes data may be shared as well:

while TikTok claims that it is independent from ByteDance and stores data in the U.S. and Singapore, its privacy policy is clear:

"We may share your information with a parent, subsidiary, or other affiliate of our corporate group."

Re: The TikTok War

#329

Post by exolymph »

CogentHedgehog wrote: post #315
TheOperator wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I modded a humble mid-sized subreddit, which was not an LGBT sub, but one where LGBT people occasionally asked LGBT-specific questions. My view of the situation initially was that conservative-minded peolle didn't really hate trans people and they were mostly frustrated by being forced to swallow an idea and being censored if they so much as asked an innocent question and that this is what was making them so upset. S…

Similar experience. I am a reddit mod for a quite large community, and the ugly truth is that a lot of bad-faith arguments are being used to provide cover for simple bullying. This a reality that is deeply uncomfortable for people who share political views with the bullies, but it is the reality on the ground.

That's not exclusive to any particular politics, it's just selection effects. The bullies who agree with you politically are off terrorizing somebody else who doesn't.

Re: The TikTok War

#330

Post by CogentHedgehog »

TheOperator wrote: post #325
CogentHedgehog wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar experience. I am a reddit mod for a quite large community, and the ugly truth is that a lot of bad-faith arguments are being used to provide cover for simple bullying. This a reality that is deeply uncomfortable for people who share political views with the bullies, but it is the reality on the ground.

Believe me. I have to live with the fact that I tolerated this behavior and enabled a ton of harassment for way too long when I had the ability to stop it. Making a post like this in hackernews I guess is my way of trying to make things right. So many people told me I had it wrong and I didn't listen.

Looking at the positives here though: it's a sign of progress and maturity that you recognize you made mistakes that unintentionally aided bullies, and that you're trying to help others not make those same mistakes. So few people are willing to admit things like this.

It's Popper's classic Paradox of Tolerance: to maintain a tolerant society, we have to be intolerant of intolerance.

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