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TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

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Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#631

Post by kec »

blahedo wrote: post #483
Brystephor wrote: post #34

What's that saying? The best way to get a promotion is to cause a problem and then fix it? Political things aside, it's crazy to see so much of a flip-flop so quickly. Has there been any other behavior like this in the past where a company "shut themselves down" to make a big political statement and then almost immediately undid the shut down?

> flip-flop so quickly The timing and phrasing make it clear that this was planned and negotiated in advance, and the shutdown was just for show in order to be able to post a memo about how "President Trump" saved it. If actual negotiation had to occur, it would not have happened in the twelve hours between midnight and noon on Sunday morning. The point of the stunt was to persuade large numbers of younger folks that…

If that’s the case this was totally bungled, the app was down for less than 12 hours, overnight during a weekend. If they wanted maximum effect Trump wouldn’t have tweeted until 5pm eastern to give people a chance to come to terms with the shutdown actually happening.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#632

Post by lalaland1125 »

sega_sai wrote: post #230

For the record -- the law for TikTok divestment was not passed on its own, but was instead included in the foreign aid (including Ukraine) package https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/congress-tiktok-ban-... It is not clear if it would have passed if not that procedural trick... So one has to take this into account when considering 'bipartisan support' of the thing.

This is a misleading view of history. It is true that it was included in the foreign aid package, but the TikTok ban was also passed in an isolated bill in an overwhelming bipartisan manner beforehand.

90% of Republicans in the House voted for the TikTok ban alone. 73% of Democrats.

https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202486

It is very clear that it would have passed without that procedural trick, because it already did.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#633

Post by dagss »

I feel like the free speech enthusiasts are missing some imagination and failing to see the situation we are in post-algorithms.

By now -- people have used their free speech to make reels for every possibly viewpoint convincing any possible demography about anything. The trail of reels needed to convert a mountain biker to a racist, or a Lego builder to an LBTQ ally, is out there. Making the free speech isn't the issue in 2025.

The question is: Who sees what, and whose opinions are shifted in what direction.

The big social networks controls the algorithms. Controlling who sees what is the new "speak", where you directly influence peoples minds simply by showing the right reels at the right moments.

We have always had propaganda and media leaning in different directions. But people would know they are looking at Fox News or The Daily Show or Pravda. With TikTo... you find that people's opinion change very gradually and without perception over the course of half a year. Never seeing "TikTok" -- only seeing "people like you" (which can be a function of time, and evolve) sharing their heartfelt opinions.

Not anything blatant of course. Blatant stuff does not change peoples opinions anyway. Just subtly bump some reels that has been proven to shift a demography in a certain direction.

TikTok has the means to do it -- all the data about what reels cause what effect on what demographic, if they just wanted to.

If TikTok is doing propaganda by subtly promoting some reels over others -- who would know? Why would they not be doing it and how can anyone know they are not already doing it?

I am not saying this is definitely happening. But any discussion that isn't treating all the social networks as weapons of mass propaganda that CAN be used is awfully naive.

And focusing on the "speech" thing seems so misplaced. It's all about who is heard and seen, and that is today all about power and algorithms.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#634

Post by sensanaty »

This was basically a 12 year old's plan for making Trump seem like a "champion" - and it somehow seems to be working, even in this comment section (assuming half the comments aren't just bots which I wouldn't discount personally).

And then people in this thread apparently unironically don't see why banning foreign propaganda is a bad thing lol

It's quite fascinating to see a nation's televised descent into absurd cronyism and corruption like this. You've got the prez-elect singlehandedly overturning laws that have just been passed a mere 24 hours ago, making shitcoin scams and getting rich off it, aligning all the psychotic techbros into his corner because they fear what kind of insane bullshit he's gonna pull off on them...

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#635

Post by sandworm101 »

Brystephor wrote: post #34

What's that saying? The best way to get a promotion is to cause a problem and then fix it? Political things aside, it's crazy to see so much of a flip-flop so quickly. Has there been any other behavior like this in the past where a company "shut themselves down" to make a big political statement and then almost immediately undid the shut down?

He who can destroy a thing controls that thing. Expect the new administration to have great influence on tiktok policy and content.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#637

Post by dluan »

lalaland1125 wrote: post #632
sega_sai wrote: post #230

For the record -- the law for TikTok divestment was not passed on its own, but was instead included in the foreign aid (including Ukraine) package https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/congress-tiktok-ban-... It is not clear if it would have passed if not that procedural trick... So one has to take this into account when considering 'bipartisan support' of the thing.

This is a misleading view of history. It is true that it was included in the foreign aid package, but the TikTok ban was also passed in an isolated bill in an overwhelming bipartisan manner beforehand. 90% of Republicans in the House voted for the TikTok ban alone. 73% of Democrats. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202486 It is very clear that it would have passed without that procedural trick, because it already did.

Now post the lobbying money received by lawmakers, as well as their history of trades of Meta stock.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#638

Post by tzs »

bearcobra wrote: post #523

Despite my own feelings on the ban, this kind of royal court politics is the worst potential outcome. Disregarding a law that was passed by a bipartisan majority, signed into law by the president and ruled on by the supreme courts feels like the start of a very dangerous path. Not to mention the prosecutorial discretion may be creating massive liability that the new administration could use to extract favors from som…

> Disregarding a law that was passed by a bipartisan majority

I wonder if there was actually a bipartisan majority in favor of getting rid of TikTok?

Yes, the bill passed by a bipartisan majority, but TikTok was not the only thing in that bill. Previous attempts to advance a standalone TikTok bill had failed to get majority support.

This time it got attached to a bill that provided $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, $26 billion in aid for Israel, and $1 billion of additional humanitarian assistance for food, medical supplies, and clean water for Gaza. There was also $8 billion for security in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.

A lot of Congress considered that aid (or parts of it) to be critical, and it had taken a lot of time to get there. I bet as a result of that a lot of Congress members would vote "yes" even if they disagreed with the TikTok part.

When Biden signed it he spoke about the importance of all the aid provisions and didn't mention TikTok at all.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#639

Post by nikkwong »

imiric wrote: post #558
nikkwong wrote: post #368

The level of naiveté in this discussion is absolutely astonishing to me. People are seeming to forget that dysfunctional states (totalitarian, facist, the like) all are sprung from one common thread: control of the mind through propaganda. We already have evidence that the CCP or otherwise is manipulating Tiktok's algorithm to influence American minds [1]. This was one study, by one relatively small and underpowered…

Hear, hear. > this community should know better about how dangerous propaganda is Bear in mind that a large part of this community is employed by the same companies that built the tools used to spread propaganda and disinformation. It wouldn't be in their interest to disclose that they're part of the problem, so it's easier to ignore that the problem even exists.

People seem to discount the way they are influenced by the media they are served. I’m seeing a lot of comments about “free agency” and how “people make up their own minds” rather than 1 to 1 believing what they read. This argument just ignores human nature. We evolved to catch onto ideas, good and bad, and be able to rationalize them in ways that often ignore the true outside state of the world. In this light we should strongly critique those who are the purveyors of information. Although I have many criticisms of even those who are serving information domestically, the idea that we’re going to trust a malicious foreign actor with molding the shape of our minds is just nonsensical.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#640

Post by lokar »

maxerickson wrote: post #601
bearcobra wrote: post #523

Despite my own feelings on the ban, this kind of royal court politics is the worst potential outcome. Disregarding a law that was passed by a bipartisan majority, signed into law by the president and ruled on by the supreme courts feels like the start of a very dangerous path. Not to mention the prosecutorial discretion may be creating massive liability that the new administration could use to extract favors from som…

Mechanistically, the law applies to the app, not the service. It's not clear to me that serving videos to users that already have the app is a violation of the law.

It also applies to their cloud providers
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