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EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

romania-insider.com

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Re: EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

#51

Post by knbknb »

switch007 wrote: post #5

That's certainly easier than sitting down and questioning your own decisions over the last couple of decades and wondering why people are voting in ways you don't like (For the record I'm not a Tiktok user and I think it's a net negative to society)

Read the article - This is not the EU commission or some bigwig requesting a hearing or an investigation.

Rather there was one delegate from one of the many political groups in the EU Parliament (which has very little authority and power) who made a statement .

In analogy to the US political system: This is not Mark Zuckerberg summoned to a Senate hearing. Rather this is someone of the House of Representatives making some weird proposal or claim.

Maybe I am oversimplifying here, but you get the idea.

Re: EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

#52

Post by rdm_blackhole »

switch007 wrote: post #5

That's certainly easier than sitting down and questioning your own decisions over the last couple of decades and wondering why people are voting in ways you don't like (For the record I'm not a Tiktok user and I think it's a net negative to society)

Agreed, would they have called the CEO of TikTok if one of the mainstream parties had won?

To me it looks like the EU wants to become an auditor of the elections of the EU members and is taking sides.

And here I thought that the EU wanted to promote democracy and the will of the people.

Re: EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

#53

Post by probably_wrong »

switch007 wrote: post #5

That's certainly easier than sitting down and questioning your own decisions over the last couple of decades and wondering why people are voting in ways you don't like (For the record I'm not a Tiktok user and I think it's a net negative to society)

I agree that politicians in a good chunk of Europe have let their constituents down one one too many times, that the breach has gotten too wide and that protest voting makes perfect sense for a lot of people. But two things can be right at the same time: I also believe it's true that dictators are sabotaging democracies everywhere and that social networks (not just TikTok) are both addictive and a major source of misinformation.

I'm constantly reminded of this bit from [1] (which is a great read):

> Later, when I ask Chase whether he’s ever heard about the QAnon conspiracy, he says no, but explains that the video must be legit because “it’s gotten deleted multiple times off the internet, which is insane.” Epistemologically, this is where we are as a country: when content gets expurgated because of blatant misinformation, it is taken as a sure sign of that source’s truthfulness.

I certainly want more politicians to be afraid of the people they claim to represent, but I also want social networks to stop throwing their hands in the air and pretend they're not responsible for spreading misinformation at an unprecedent scale.

[1] https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/tiktok-house-collab-hous...

Re: EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

#54

Post by lm28469 »

dauertewigkeit wrote: post #14

I cannot believe that people are calling for the ban of TikTok or X or any other social platform. It's just a gut feeling but it feels to me as though the more the economic situation in Europe deteriorates the more the continent descends into totalitarianism.

Most countries have laws on TV and radio time per political parties to regulate these things, why not do it on social medias?

Democracy isn't just about voting every X years, it's also about being able to make well informed decisions, which is not the case when a foreign state agent employs bot farms to skew the story. I'm not saying the current system is perfect but clearly sprinkling it with foreign influence isn't going to make it better.

Social medias are the only thing that are still mostly unregulated black boxes, the government knows about the secret recipe of coca cola, or the secret recipe of KFC spices, &c. But the algos of TikTok, Instagram, &co aren't discussed anywhere

If RussCola sold bottles of soda with mercury in Germany would you say it would be totalitarian to ban them? If people want mercury in their cola who are we to judge?

Re: EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

#55

Post by rdm_blackhole »

knbknb wrote: post #51
switch007 wrote: post #5

That's certainly easier than sitting down and questioning your own decisions over the last couple of decades and wondering why people are voting in ways you don't like (For the record I'm not a Tiktok user and I think it's a net negative to society)

Read the article - This is not the EU commission or some bigwig requesting a hearing or an investigation. Rather there was one delegate from one of the many political groups in the EU Parliament (which has very little authority and power) who made a statement . In analogy to the US political system: This is not Mark Zuckerberg summoned to a Senate hearing. Rather this is someone of the House of Representatives making…

Does it matter in the end?

The way I see it, it's a parliamentary member from France from the Renew group in the EU parliament who is not happy with the results and thinks that the democracy needs to be saved because the results do not align with their expectations.

The decent thing to do would be to take this vote into account and accept that not everyone wants the same thing.

Re: EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

#56

Post by rdm_blackhole »

garte wrote: post #15
isoprophlex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The information warfare situation is highly asymmetric, and we seem to just let it fester on. The west doesn't have ubiquitous mind control devices deployed behind the great firewall. That this situation persists is a signal, to me, that our leaders aren't well equipped to deal with the realities of tech in 2024.

Our leaders do their job by trying to uphold our values like freedom of expression and equality and that other stuff. This makes us vulnerable and we have to adapt. But hopefully not by banning these things, but by educating ourselves about the risks and gains of using addictive technology. At least that's the theory, I guess. TikTok should be handled like an addictive substance. It and things just like it should be…

> Our leaders do their job by trying to uphold our values like freedom of expression and equality and that other stuff.

Is that so, what about Chat Control then? is that law upholding freedom of expression? I guess I was not aware that automated reports to the EU cops of "suspicious" messages could be seen as maintaining freedom of expression in the EU.

Have we crossed the Rubicon here? War is peace, freedom is slavery and freedom of expression is 24/7 monitoring of your private conversations.

Re: EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

#57

Post by latexr »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #55
knbknb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article - This is not the EU commission or some bigwig requesting a hearing or an investigation. Rather there was one delegate from one of the many political groups in the EU Parliament (which has very little authority and power) who made a statement . In analogy to the US political system: This is not Mark Zuckerberg summoned to a Senate hearing. Rather this is someone of the House of Representatives making…

Does it matter in the end? The way I see it, it's a parliamentary member from France from the Renew group in the EU parliament who is not happy with the results and thinks that the democracy needs to be saved because the results do not align with their expectations. The decent thing to do would be to take this vote into account and accept that not everyone wants the same thing.

> Does it matter in the end?

Yes, it does. It matters very much. The difference between a governmental body ordering you to do something and a single employee making one comment is tremendous. Maybe the latter can lead to the former, maybe, but they’re very far from being the same thing.

Re: EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

#58

Post by rdm_blackhole »

cbg0 wrote: post #25
logicchains wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a travesty that western countries have moved from trying to gain their people's support by improving their living conditions to trying to gain their people's support by lying to them, such that unrestricted discussion of the facts is such a threat to the governments in power.

If only it were facts being discussed, but social media is plagued with alternative facts(aka lies) and no mechanism of getting rid of it, as reporting doesn't do anything since social media companies just fake compliance but take no serious action against disinformation. This is all from my personal experience reporting egregious fake information (the kind you can check with the first google result) on social media…

If we are going to go down that road, then what about the mainstream media then? How many lies have they gotten away with and never corrected?

I agree that misinformation is spreading on social media, but let's not forget that the mainstream media has been caught lying deliberately or by omission more times than I can count.

Re: EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

#59

Post by [deleted] »

naiv wrote: post #19
consumer451 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be denying the fact that humans are easily programmed meat machines, even the best of us. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8116821/

You make the assumption that social media is the main source of truth for voters. But people are waking up and vote because of what they see with their own eyes.

[deleted]

Re: EU Summons TikTok CEO After Romanian Election Shocker

#60

Post by latexr »

chvid wrote: post #40

Why single TikTok out? Was there more campaigning that EU doesn't like on TikTok compared to Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter? Does Facebook et all promote / filter political contents different from TikTok?

It’s in the article:

> Georgescu based his campaign on TikTok

It’s not “singling out” if that’s the principal hub.

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