Since when does Congress ban websites or dictate what apps people can have on their devices? Regardless of how you feel about this particular company, I feel like no one is talking about the internet-killing precedent that’s being set here, and that should be concerning.
It’s being used as an infiltration device by the Chinese government. Not that I agree butvits not just a website. Same as Twitter and Facebook bit we have more control over those.
It’s being used as an infiltration device by the Chinese government
Please prove this.
There’s obviously not going to be proof, it’d be huge news if there were. At the same time, I also wonder why people so adamantly defensive of TikTok in particular? It seems trivial enough to establish that they could exert an undue influence on a global audience through social media with just a few (I would think uncontroversial) assumptions
- Social platforms have more than enough information to create a good idea of your politics, personality, and interests
- Platforms such as TikTok operate on “pushing” content the algorithm wants instead of users “pulling” content they want to see
- You are not immune to propaganda. Nobody is.
With a state ownership stake in the picture, it creates a pretty uneasy tension, right? If they know (1), they could just push ads and content which would help prime you emotionally and mentally to receive that advertising via mechanism (2). This is their actual business model.
Alternatively, if so motivated, they could just as easily use that same profile and mechanism to push content which nudges the content consumer in any myriad ways (politically, socially, etc.). Start with something that’s “close” to the viewer’s existing views, and cumulatively keep pushing content which leads folks down pipelines. They don’t even need to make the content. The users create it; the sentiment, quality, and popularity data informs which shorts to push where; refine the model based on receptivity; repeat as necessary.
Given (3), especially at the scale we’re talking about with TikTok, I think it’s obviously possible that the platform could be used to meaningfully influence public opinion, sow discord, spread misinformation, whatever. Whether they actually do this is purely speculative, but I also have a hard time thinking people would be quite so enthusiastically defensive of a similar social platform under direct influence from their own government?
Same as Twitter and Facebook bit we have more control over those.
Only in the sense that the people using them to manipulate us are the same ones making the laws. They’re leveraging it for their own ends, not stopping it.
The correct course of action (from the perspective of the American people, in stark contrast to that of the American government/oligarchy) would be to ban TikTok as the threat it is, and also ban Facebook, Twitter and Reddit for the threats they pose as well. The trouble is that it won’t, because it is the entity wielding that weapon against the American people and will not voluntarily disarm itself.
Banning them is the exact wrong way to go about the problem. That just gives the government the power to ban apps that contain information that doesn’t fit the narrative the government wants to put out. It gives them control over the consumer.
What should happen is comprehensive privacy protections for consumers and extensive fines when companies don’t abide by them. That way, the consumer benefits and the government has more oversight over companies, not people.
To be fair they didn’t actually name TikTok. That would be clearly Unconstitutional. Instead they made a bill that will only apply to one company. So unconstitutional but most people won’t notice.
And even better Meta, Alphabet, Apple, and GM are all busy selling China your information as fast as they can anyways.
