721–730 of 1001 posts
Let’s be clear about one thing: it’s never about protecting the privacy of private citizens—that’s just the justification. Social networking platforms are among the most effective tools for mass influence, second only to religion. The U.S. has held a monopoly on this power, leveraging it to gather data on citizens worldwide and projecting our value systems onto others. Banning TikTok is simply an effort by us to main…
I'm fine with this, based on the simple principle of Turnabout Is Fair Play . China already bans practically all the popular US social media apps and similar apps/websites. I'm for free trade, but it ought to be fair trade too, as in, roughly similar/equal policies. If another country bans X imports from your own, it's hardly unfair to respond in kind.
But the CCP wants to have their cake and eat it too. Fully repressive social media lock downs and censorship for their citizens but exploiting the west’s values of free speech and debate.
US citizens do not want this. Every news article descending into tangents on any other point than that is part of why we can't have nice things. The whole country has turned into some sort of lower primate improv troupe where whatever stupid thing comes up gets a "Yes and let's" diversion instead of an adult in the room standing up and cutting the crap.
We certainly _do_ want this. I think the fact that we let a foreign company own a social media platform in the first place is preposterous. As others have said, we would never let the CCP own a TV broadcast, why should we let china own a major social media platform? That's just absurd.
noahpinion has a great post [1] on this today and he points out the interesting observations we can make: 1. because it's "Beijing" who is tasked with deciding whether or not TikTok can be sold makes it extremely clear Bytedance is not an independent private company the way it would be the case in the US. They are legally required to obey CCP directives [2] 2. Beijing had every opportunity to sell the application off…
This is an absolutely ridiculous line of reasoning. Tiktok has over a billion users, and about 150 million of those are American. It would be downright stupid to sell all of it just for the US market and it would set an absolutely disastrous precedent.
Let’s be clear about one thing: it’s never about protecting the privacy of private citizens—that’s just the justification. Social networking platforms are among the most effective tools for mass influence, second only to religion. The U.S. has held a monopoly on this power, leveraging it to gather data on citizens worldwide and projecting our value systems onto others. Banning TikTok is simply an effort by us to main…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Teens are rebellious & want to be far away from parents. It disqualifies mainstream apps like Twitter, Reddit, BlueSky, Reels & now Snapchat as well. This leaves Tiktok and now international apps like Xiaohongshu as the obvious alternatives. The more the US govt. forces youths to use American mega-corps, the less they want to use it.
parents aren't on Discord
Let’s be clear about one thing: it’s never about protecting the privacy of private citizens—that’s just the justification. Social networking platforms are among the most effective tools for mass influence, second only to religion. The U.S. has held a monopoly on this power, leveraging it to gather data on citizens worldwide and projecting our value systems onto others. Banning TikTok is simply an effort by us to main…
Religion is distributed through churches, synagogues, mosques etc, the medieval equivalent of a digital social platform. A social media platform is kinda like the Vatican but x10000000.
It's really rare for me to be pro-intervention when it comes to the government vs free-industry but TikTok has become undeniably, geopolitically hazardous for the US. The dismal bit of it is that nation state backed, habit-forming propaganda apps are only likely to proliferate.
I continue to be baffled by people who simultaneously believe that TikTok is dangerous because of Chinese propaganda that may happen in the future, but that all the other social media networks are not dangerous despite the mostly Russian misinformation and election interference that has been ongoing since 2016. So far as I can see the important part is not who owns the network, but just how easy it is for misinformat…
You can affirm one thing without affirming similar arguments. This is important for me to say because you're consigning me to an argument that I didn't make.
It's really rare for me to be pro-intervention when it comes to the government vs free-industry but TikTok has become undeniably, geopolitically hazardous for the US. The dismal bit of it is that nation state backed, habit-forming propaganda apps are only likely to proliferate.
Can you provide examples of China controlled propaganda happening on Tiktok? Things that are factually true don't count, obviously.