Well yeah. It’s a destructive misinformation and destabilisation service. You don’t want that running amok in your country. Gotta love how its algorithm finds young immigrants in European countries and promotes content with religious fundamentalism and crime.
I don’t understand why you guys are trying to educate me on how Bytedance operates. It’s the same as how Weixin and WeChat work. China wants to moderate and curate Douyin but you guys still expect China not to get involved in Tik Tok. Sure it’s content is different but it’s literally the same thing with the same backdoor accessibility. Anyone that argues ‘bit China do good seeeeee’ is obviously masking their love for the red boot flavor.
What I don’t understand is the sentiment that China would want to let Tik Tok run amok but drills down on Douyin. All while at the same time they say “see China doesn’t allow Tik Tok either, it’s nothing like their child friendly great alternative Douyin”.
I believe they use a different backend/storage. Different content shows up depending if you are searching from Tiktok or Douyin. Perhaps someone from Bytedance is curating select content from Tiktok for Douyin.
Either way, if I put a video on Tiktok it does not mean Chinese users on Douyin will see it.
TikTok is literally a weapon created and used to undermine the USA (among other democracies but mainly USA) and to brainwash its citizens. Anyone who doesn’t see it is a useful idiot who bought into Chinese propaganda.
All the popular social media apps have been weaponized to undermine democracy across the globe. They’re in dire need of sensible regulation. In many democracies, including the US, the current political situation makes this a virtual impossibility. Personally, I’d rather see a ban on all content algorithm social media than no regulation at all.
I’d be happy with just a minor amendment to the Communication Decency Act that would make social media companies liable for content their algorithms recommend. It’s fine for them to be shielded for liability for things posted by users on a site that’s moderated to avoid the problems that act was designed to prevent. But as soon as a complex algorithm is recommending content to someone, it should be considered to be the same as traditional media publishing something.
And the libertarian techbros should be happy with this because it’s actually less regulation. Though somehow I think their libertarian ideals would melt away when a regulation that shields them from liability is removed.
but all these talks about keeping children off phones is restricting the flow of information to a point that it scares me. we have Enciclopedias in our pockets ffs.
if the bar kids from easily accessing the internet, they’re effectively blocking 2mil people (14-17) from instant access to information. (I did some sleep deprived math, dont @me if its off)
As far as I know, there’s no legislation being talked about to keep kids off their phones, or even social media. This is more of a concern about China having unfettered access to user data at the drop of a hat, which I can absolutely agree is an issue. Though I don’t know that current legislation is the solution.
That said, kids absolutely do need to spend more time off their phone than they do. We’ve seen legitimate issues arise from perpetual phone use. The issue is… you can’t really legislate that. It’s parents that need to get their heads out of the sand and actually parent.
If they actually cared about that, they would legislate data privacy laws that keep our data from being sold on the open market. As it is now, everyone from the FBI to your local cops, to the RNC to Chinese or Saudi companies can pay cash for user data. This legislation is largely protectionism for our own domestic surveillance capitalism industry.
The same could be said of the US. GAFAM works for the US just like TikTok works for China. I’d like to see the reaction of the US if the EU told Meta to sell the European branch so they “can’t spy on EU citizens”.
There’s a difference here. Neither the US not the EU can just put their hands out and say “data pleeeeeaaase” and get what they want. There are legal and procedural protections in place for such things.
Chinese companies on the other hand, are required to do whatever the CCP says, when they are told to.
If things go through the proper legal channels, no. But we are talking about anything not just specific things that go through the courts.
The CCP can say “Give me everything you have on bufalo1973, they bothered me one time and I want to bomb their house” and any Chinese company immediately hands over the data, because they have to.
In contrast, the NSA can still get some of that data, but they can’t demand it and expect it to be handed over without a good reason, and without jumping through hoops.
As an aside, trying to equate the CCP and the NSA is… odd. The CCP answers to no one, the NSA answers to the DOD, who answers to Congress.
Aside from Apple refusing to decrypt phones most tech companies seem to not have put up any resistance to providing the US (or even the saudi government in the case of X) with whatever info they ask for.
Like I think one of the regulatory agencies had to introduce a rule to bar US tech companies from selling user data to china.
I’ve said this like a thousand times and I hate repitition, but the USA as a whole has never tried to ban TikTok. Trump claims he did, it isn’t allowed for military servicemembers, but it has never been banned.
Forced sale only works if your government has any control over the organizational structure of your company which the USA does not. What they are effectively doing is forcing the American arm of Tik Tok to sell without access to it’s technology which China can absolutely deny. If the sale doesn’t go through, the US will ban its use. If they do sell, it will be without the technology and a company will be Tik Tok in name only having to essentially build the service from the ground up. This is an effective ban of Tik Tok regardless of the outcome.
What makes you think the proprietary rights held by the Chinese hold any sway in the USA? If they want to try suing they can, heck they can even take it to international courts, but they won’t have much luck given the evidence that China was using it maliciously.
What I mean is, there is no way the Chinese headquarters of tik Tok will let the America arm of the company have access to its algorithm. Tik Tok is nothing without its algorithm. At best it’s a large install base that will dwindle once they realize til Tok kinda sucks all of a sudden.
Oh that would be interesting, it seems very uneconomic for it to be that centralized because the US facilities would be useless but I suppose I could see it as a possibility. In that case, whoever they sell to could try to sue them with pretty unlikely odds of success. More likely China would just refuse to sell in that circumstance, in which case it would be the same as China themselves ending TikTok.
Imagine blocking TikTok for being a competitor in a so called free market under the guise of national security and privacy
They didn’t blink an eye when Facebook had to testify about blatantly abusing COPPA and doing the exact same thing.
And not even the platform itself, just the company so it can be liquidated or sold to an American megacorp so it can make money for the poor shareholders and let the NSA do their funny PRISM plugin.
The company is allowed to operate under different ownership. It’s pretty simple, and makes a lot of sense for the nation’s interests given the amount of hostility from China.
Americans are the most propagandized people on earth. They’ll kick and scream about Chinese Censorship, then accuse a Singapore CEO of being a Chinese Communist and pass legislation to Censor an American company because it took money from Chinese investment group ages ago.
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