TikTok... DOOM!
March 13, 2024 5:45 AM Subscribe
The seemingly dormant push to target ultrapopular video platform TikTok on national security grounds roared back to life this week as the House teed up a surprise bipartisan vote on forced divestment of the app's US operations.
An attempt by Chinese parent company ByteDance to mobilize users against the legislation clearly backfired, angering lawmakers into delivering a unanimous vote to proceed.
Critics warn the app offers the increasingly authoritarian CCP government reams of sensitive data and an unprecedented insight into the American psyche (along with a potent avenue for propaganda and influence operations), while defenders cite the company's diversified ownership and ongoing efforts at re-shoring US data operations.
Bolstered by support from the White House (and a troubling intelligence report on election interference), the bill sees likely passage in the House today and an uncertain path in the Senate, as well as a long legal battle after that. The biggest twist: former president Trump, a longtime Sinophobe who signed a failed executive order banning the app, has suddenly flipped in favor of it as a counterweight to Facebook -- a move many insiders see as calculated to undercut Biden's already precarious support from young voters.
LIVE: House to vote on bill that could ban TikTok (starting at 9 AM Eastern)
Axios:
LIVE: House to vote on bill that could ban TikTok (starting at 9 AM Eastern)
Axios:
Furious Congress plows forward with TikTok bill after user revoltMore background:
TikTok ban timeline: Congress' yearslong case against ByteDance
"My livelihood at stake": TikTokers revolt against potential ban
Shotgun divorce: How ByteDance could save TikTok from a U.S. ban
Buzzfeed: Leaked Audio From 80 Internal TikTok Meetings Shows That US User Data Has Been Repeatedly Accessed From ChinaHere are the countries that have bans on TikTok
Forbes: TikTok Parent ByteDance Planned To Use TikTok To Monitor The Physical Location Of Specific American Citizens and TikTok Spied On Forbes Journalists
NYT: ByteDance Inquiry Finds Employees Obtained User Data of 2 Journalists
TechCrunch: The Justice Department is investigating TikTok over journalist spying incident
I'm all for banning social apps, but I'd like to see some action on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, too. Especially Twitter, since we already know they're eagerly rolling over for any fascist who leans on them.
posted by signal at 5:55 AM on March 13 [22 favorites]
posted by signal at 5:55 AM on March 13 [22 favorites]
Yes, per the CNN article, TikTok potentially allowing the CCP access to user data: could have enormous repercussions for US elections, policymaking and other democratic discourse.
but these dangers will clearly persist re: social media data sharing, only the nationality of the threat will change. This would all be easier to palate if I converted to Patriotism and just rooted for our hometown American manipulators over the foreign Chinese.
posted by Hume at 6:06 AM on March 13 [14 favorites]
but these dangers will clearly persist re: social media data sharing, only the nationality of the threat will change. This would all be easier to palate if I converted to Patriotism and just rooted for our hometown American manipulators over the foreign Chinese.
posted by Hume at 6:06 AM on March 13 [14 favorites]
This won't do anything to make TikTok less harmful, but it might piss off and alienate a lot of younger voters.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:20 AM on March 13 [7 favorites]
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:20 AM on March 13 [7 favorites]
So, a few months ago I, a middle-aged white married guy who's been online since the early 90s, signed up for TikTok, and the first thing it showed me were a bunch of right-wing propaganda, really gross stuff about immigrants, how Russia has every right to invade Ukraine, trans people hold drag shows to make children gay, etc., etc.
I closed it and ignored it for a while, but then learned there's a "I don't like this" option buried if you hold on a video, so I started doing that -- and it devolved into showing me videos about chemtrails, anti-vaccination, and flat earth. Oh, and So. Much. Epstein. Conspiracy.
THEN after 'don't like' to those -- it devolved into showing me nearly/completely naked women gyrating. Every. Video.
Like, is TikTok just 4Chan all the way down? Do parents not monitor their kids, if kids are the ones calling their representatives?
(I did eventually track down and follow the ACLU and the AFL-CIO which made the algorithm clean things up quite a bit...but if I scroll long enough the gross stuff comes back. I feel like a luddite old man saying I don't understand TikTok, but it's not giving me much to work with here)
(I'm not complaining about naked women online, per se, and Instagram is bad about suggesting me seductive women videos too. Maybe that's just what the internet is today?)
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:30 AM on March 13 [45 favorites]
I closed it and ignored it for a while, but then learned there's a "I don't like this" option buried if you hold on a video, so I started doing that -- and it devolved into showing me videos about chemtrails, anti-vaccination, and flat earth. Oh, and So. Much. Epstein. Conspiracy.
THEN after 'don't like' to those -- it devolved into showing me nearly/completely naked women gyrating. Every. Video.
Like, is TikTok just 4Chan all the way down? Do parents not monitor their kids, if kids are the ones calling their representatives?
(I did eventually track down and follow the ACLU and the AFL-CIO which made the algorithm clean things up quite a bit...but if I scroll long enough the gross stuff comes back. I feel like a luddite old man saying I don't understand TikTok, but it's not giving me much to work with here)
(I'm not complaining about naked women online, per se, and Instagram is bad about suggesting me seductive women videos too. Maybe that's just what the internet is today?)
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:30 AM on March 13 [45 favorites]
My wife watches TikTok, and most of her feed's people lip synching to professional comics, and funny animals. I'm not sure what's different from what she sees to what you see.
Electoral Vote today mentions that Trump met with Jeff Yass, who owns a minority stake in TikTok. Yass also has a lot more money than Trump, who's looking for cash right now. That might have influenced Trump's change of heart.
And, yeah, they're doing what the other social media companies are doing. If the CCP can't get the data directly from them, they could probably buy it from someone else pretty easily.
posted by Spike Glee at 6:41 AM on March 13 [4 favorites]
Electoral Vote today mentions that Trump met with Jeff Yass, who owns a minority stake in TikTok. Yass also has a lot more money than Trump, who's looking for cash right now. That might have influenced Trump's change of heart.
And, yeah, they're doing what the other social media companies are doing. If the CCP can't get the data directly from them, they could probably buy it from someone else pretty easily.
posted by Spike Glee at 6:41 AM on March 13 [4 favorites]
They can't do that to our pledges! Only we can do that to our pledges!
posted by credulous at 6:44 AM on March 13 [11 favorites]
posted by credulous at 6:44 AM on March 13 [11 favorites]
a middle aged white married guy in the us who signs up for tiktok is probably really into right-wing propoganda, anti-vax, and egirls. they're not guessing out of thin air. they know who you are before you sign up. that's one thing about tiktok. it probably has the most refined (and refinable) feed algorith on the planet.
that's why i stay away from it. i need to protect myself from that much dopamine. tumblr is bad enough.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:45 AM on March 13 [15 favorites]
that's why i stay away from it. i need to protect myself from that much dopamine. tumblr is bad enough.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:45 AM on March 13 [15 favorites]
I’m definitely concerned by TikTok surveilling journalists, and I’m not personally a fan of the platform. But I tend to think what we need is actual comprehensive privacy legislation in the US, not a bill targeting a particular company (or even “companies based in China”).
Every constitutional expert out there seems to think that a TikTok ban would run afoul of the first amendment. And the push for a ban seems to be motivated as much by racism as by any genuine security concerns.
posted by learning from frequent failure at 6:46 AM on March 13 [35 favorites]
Every constitutional expert out there seems to think that a TikTok ban would run afoul of the first amendment. And the push for a ban seems to be motivated as much by racism as by any genuine security concerns.
posted by learning from frequent failure at 6:46 AM on March 13 [35 favorites]
former president Trump, a longtime Sinophobe who signed a failed executive order banning the app, has suddenly flipped in favor of it as a counterweight to Facebook -- a move many insiders see as calculated to undercut Biden's already precarious support from young voters.
I’m pretty sure someone just paid him money, he’s extremely buyable right now.
Worst and dumbest stopped clock ever.
posted by Artw at 6:56 AM on March 13 [9 favorites]
I’m pretty sure someone just paid him money, he’s extremely buyable right now.
Worst and dumbest stopped clock ever.
posted by Artw at 6:56 AM on March 13 [9 favorites]
I would agree that actual useful privacy laws that did not single out a single company and that weren’t some back doors thibk-of-the-children censorship Bull shit like KOSA would be a good thing. Obviously this is not that.
posted by Artw at 6:58 AM on March 13 [11 favorites]
posted by Artw at 6:58 AM on March 13 [11 favorites]
AzraelBrown: "(I'm not complaining about naked women online, per se, and Instagram is bad about suggesting me seductive women videos too. Maybe that's just what the internet is today?)"
Uh... you do know the internet has always been that way, right?
posted by caution live frogs at 7:03 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
Uh... you do know the internet has always been that way, right?
posted by caution live frogs at 7:03 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
This is why I will not TikTok.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:10 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:10 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]
Has anyone asked Ke$ha to weigh in on this?
posted by Ishbadiddle at 7:15 AM on March 13 [8 favorites]
posted by Ishbadiddle at 7:15 AM on March 13 [8 favorites]
When I tried tiktok it quickly decided all I wanted to see was traditional dances. It was pretty great but I think I spent maybe six hours total on it, started seeing the same videos over and over, and ended up all "in conclusion, I love to watch people doing their traditional dances!" and deleted the app. Whatever juice tiktok has, I am apparently immune to its charms.
So it's no great loss to me if it gets banned. But I think it's ridiculous anyone is giving Trump credit for canny courting of the youth vote on this one. He's just after Jeff Yass's money. He'll do anything, say anything, to get campaign donations that he'll funnel straight to his legal fees.
posted by potrzebie at 7:16 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
So it's no great loss to me if it gets banned. But I think it's ridiculous anyone is giving Trump credit for canny courting of the youth vote on this one. He's just after Jeff Yass's money. He'll do anything, say anything, to get campaign donations that he'll funnel straight to his legal fees.
posted by potrzebie at 7:16 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
This post reminded me how I miss DOOM
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:20 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:20 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
Oh, I opened up TikTok and the first thing it showed me was a video from the ACLU in support of TikTok, saying any government restrictions of the [hate filled] video streaming site violates free speech. In conclusion, TikTok is a land of contrast.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:20 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:20 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]
Yass also has a lot more money than Trump, who's looking for cash right now.
Classical red flag for security clearance too, and the guy is going to get security briefs now as the GOP's candidate, as custom is.
posted by Harald74 at 7:20 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]
Classical red flag for security clearance too, and the guy is going to get security briefs now as the GOP's candidate, as custom is.
posted by Harald74 at 7:20 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]
In the United States, if the gubmint wants to get data from a social media company, it either needs a warrant or subpoena, generally for some very limited people, time, and/or issue. Or, the cooperation of the social media company.
With TikTok, the CCP owns part of the company and can access whatever data or all of the data any time it wants.
Here in the US, the law theoretically protects your privacy.
Having said that, I am opposed to a ban on TikTok. If you don't want to give up your privacy or don't want your data in the hands of some corporation or foreign government, don't use the app. Some people don't care or think the entertainment value is worth the price. Bless their hearts.
Using a government ban in place of parenting is usually a recipe for failure.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:31 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
With TikTok, the CCP owns part of the company and can access whatever data or all of the data any time it wants.
Here in the US, the law theoretically protects your privacy.
Having said that, I am opposed to a ban on TikTok. If you don't want to give up your privacy or don't want your data in the hands of some corporation or foreign government, don't use the app. Some people don't care or think the entertainment value is worth the price. Bless their hearts.
Using a government ban in place of parenting is usually a recipe for failure.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:31 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
Tik-tok shows me a lot of random crap, a lot of butts, things with the word 'chile' in it, and the two or three bands I subscribe to.
Instagram, facebook, twitter (before I nuked it), youtube, all the algos are terrible at showing me things I'm actually interested in.
Spotify is so-so with music recs, but they keep trying to push reggaeton and other crap on me because I'm in Chile, I assume.
I'm especially confused at how bad youtube is, seeing as I've had my account since before Google bought it. You'd think they'd've figured me out by now.
Maybe it's me.
posted by signal at 7:34 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]
Instagram, facebook, twitter (before I nuked it), youtube, all the algos are terrible at showing me things I'm actually interested in.
Spotify is so-so with music recs, but they keep trying to push reggaeton and other crap on me because I'm in Chile, I assume.
I'm especially confused at how bad youtube is, seeing as I've had my account since before Google bought it. You'd think they'd've figured me out by now.
Maybe it's me.
posted by signal at 7:34 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]
Seems like congress is betting that alienating users of a platform founded on the notion that its users have an attention span of under sixty seconds isn't a big gamble.
posted by phooky at 7:34 AM on March 13 [9 favorites]
posted by phooky at 7:34 AM on March 13 [9 favorites]
I can't figure out why I'm supposed to be more terrified of the CCP spying on my data than I am having my own feds spy on my data. My government wants to put me in jail and take away my house and my good drugs. The CCP wants to.... steal IP from american billionaires? Good for them.
I use FB, twitter, and tiktok.
And of the three of them - tiktok feels the least manipulative, by far. Facebook and twitter feels like opening my brain up directly to the psychotic technocrat bug-men in silicon valley.
Tiktok feels like it's trying to trick me into suspecting that America isn't, in fact, #1 best country. And, uh, I like it. I like it a lot. The obvious propaganda videos are beautiful essays about pastoral rural traditions in China and I don't care if it's all a horrible lie - it's just nice getting something other than the stuff the DOD cooks up in hollywood.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:35 AM on March 13 [15 favorites]
I use FB, twitter, and tiktok.
And of the three of them - tiktok feels the least manipulative, by far. Facebook and twitter feels like opening my brain up directly to the psychotic technocrat bug-men in silicon valley.
Tiktok feels like it's trying to trick me into suspecting that America isn't, in fact, #1 best country. And, uh, I like it. I like it a lot. The obvious propaganda videos are beautiful essays about pastoral rural traditions in China and I don't care if it's all a horrible lie - it's just nice getting something other than the stuff the DOD cooks up in hollywood.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:35 AM on March 13 [15 favorites]
Trump has had and will likely have again the highest security clearance of any person in the United States. As yesterday's hearing proved, neither Biden nor Trump nor members of that committee should have a security clearance greater than any dog catcher. (Apologies to all dog catchers for linking them to any politician.)
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:35 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:35 AM on March 13 [3 favorites]
→
With the exception of Afghanistan, all of these are restrictions on having TikTok on government-issued devices, not "omg no tiktok for you". Is this unreasonable?
posted by scruss at 7:41 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]
Here are the countries that have bans on TikTok
With the exception of Afghanistan, all of these are restrictions on having TikTok on government-issued devices, not "omg no tiktok for you". Is this unreasonable?
posted by scruss at 7:41 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]
I watch tiktok a lot. my algorithm this morning showed me
1) a non-fiction books influencer who's been very vocal about his struggles with schizophrenia whose top recommended books are books like The Jakarta Method (about CIA support of brutal war crimes overseas) and The Great Displacement (human-centric narratives about climate change and disaster)
2) a BIPOC bodybuilder who provides evidence-based exercise techniques and recommendations who responded to a comment asking him for advice on approaching women and responded with 'ask them what they're interested in, pay attention, if you don't like most of it then it probably won't work but most of all treat them like they're another human being because they are'
3) funny video of someone's sister who's a singer in a post-surgical, anesthetized state who is belting out some beautiful alto melodies
4-7) queertok (ie one video of a woman playing pool, missing the shot, announcing her height, and generally mocking straight men, another following the 'when you're a queer person in [this city] and you [do this stereotypical action], and one that's self-defense related)
8) a Black influencer reacting to Megan Thee Stallions extremely good, very hot cosplays of Jojos, JJK
all this to say that that if you give it enough of your preferences/behaviors, Tiktok ends up much better than Instagram or Youtube. I say this because I very rarely (if ever) receive content that is literally far-right conspiracy shit on Tiktok. after subscribing to tons of breadtube content I still get stuff by Tim Pool and other notoriously right-wing conspiracist shit on Youtube. Instagram, too, will occasionally send me down meme rabbit holes that where the implicit messaging stops being ironically problematic and is just straight problematic - all this after years on these platforms
there's a wider conversation to be had about curated realities leading to political division, ideological extremism, echo chambers, etc but for everyone who doesn't see the stuff they want on TikTok - that's because these other platforms have years of your behaviors tracked. but they are also much worse about recognizing what you actually want even after those years of accumulation and I rarely, if ever, discover new or novel creators or content on those platforms and more often am just pissed that I am, once again, getting a four hour long 'interview' where Joe Rogan is stoned out of his gourd, saying stupid shit and letting his guest say stupid shit
posted by paimapi at 7:42 AM on March 13 [22 favorites]
1) a non-fiction books influencer who's been very vocal about his struggles with schizophrenia whose top recommended books are books like The Jakarta Method (about CIA support of brutal war crimes overseas) and The Great Displacement (human-centric narratives about climate change and disaster)
2) a BIPOC bodybuilder who provides evidence-based exercise techniques and recommendations who responded to a comment asking him for advice on approaching women and responded with 'ask them what they're interested in, pay attention, if you don't like most of it then it probably won't work but most of all treat them like they're another human being because they are'
3) funny video of someone's sister who's a singer in a post-surgical, anesthetized state who is belting out some beautiful alto melodies
4-7) queertok (ie one video of a woman playing pool, missing the shot, announcing her height, and generally mocking straight men, another following the 'when you're a queer person in [this city] and you [do this stereotypical action], and one that's self-defense related)
8) a Black influencer reacting to Megan Thee Stallions extremely good, very hot cosplays of Jojos, JJK
all this to say that that if you give it enough of your preferences/behaviors, Tiktok ends up much better than Instagram or Youtube. I say this because I very rarely (if ever) receive content that is literally far-right conspiracy shit on Tiktok. after subscribing to tons of breadtube content I still get stuff by Tim Pool and other notoriously right-wing conspiracist shit on Youtube. Instagram, too, will occasionally send me down meme rabbit holes that where the implicit messaging stops being ironically problematic and is just straight problematic - all this after years on these platforms
there's a wider conversation to be had about curated realities leading to political division, ideological extremism, echo chambers, etc but for everyone who doesn't see the stuff they want on TikTok - that's because these other platforms have years of your behaviors tracked. but they are also much worse about recognizing what you actually want even after those years of accumulation and I rarely, if ever, discover new or novel creators or content on those platforms and more often am just pissed that I am, once again, getting a four hour long 'interview' where Joe Rogan is stoned out of his gourd, saying stupid shit and letting his guest say stupid shit
posted by paimapi at 7:42 AM on March 13 [22 favorites]
JUST IN: The House has passed legislation that could ban TikTok in the US, a major challenge to one of the world’s most popular social media apps used by 170 million Americans, unless it parts ways with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
posted by clavdivs at 7:45 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 7:45 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
A social network with no Americans will be intereseting, like going on Vacation in Cuba. One of the better side-effects of their clownish government's rake-stepping.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:45 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
posted by Space Coyote at 7:45 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
Too many people think they're immune to propaganda. Of course China wants to influence U.S citizens' thoughts and behavior. Why make it so easy to do by allowing something like TikTok? Oh, American companies are trying to do the same thing? By all means, let's attack that too, but don't imagine the Chinese government is not a long-term threat while getting caught up in whataboutism.
posted by otsebyatina at 7:54 AM on March 13 [21 favorites]
posted by otsebyatina at 7:54 AM on March 13 [21 favorites]
Brilliant young voter outreach by the GOP. Can't wait for their follow up bills criminalizing anime or calling for everyone born in the 00's to be hit in the throat with a pipe. No notes, tip top thinking.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:04 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:04 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
Anthony Goldbloom, a San Francisco-based data scientist and tech executive, started analyzing data TikTok published in its dashboard for ad buyers showing the number of times users watched videos with certain hashtags. He found far more views for videos with pro-Palestinian hashtags than those with pro-Israel hashtags. While the ratio fluctuated, he found that at times it ran 69 to 1 in favor of videos with pro-Palestinian hashtags.
It’s funny that this has been the impetus for the renewed efforts to ban the app. Can they think of no other reason than Chinese interference for pro-Palestinian hashtags to be more popular?
posted by bluloo at 8:15 AM on March 13 [14 favorites]
It’s funny that this has been the impetus for the renewed efforts to ban the app. Can they think of no other reason than Chinese interference for pro-Palestinian hashtags to be more popular?
posted by bluloo at 8:15 AM on March 13 [14 favorites]
I had to stop watching TikTok because it was so addictive. I could lose hours by watching content on it. But like paimapi, most of my content was cat-related or silly funny videos that reminded me of Vine (RIP). This is also rang true for Twitter when I was on it, but then I had my account set to private. I may not use YouTube often but I don't get weird gross right wing stuff. In fact, I don't get any of that so I don't know what I am accidentally doing right.
posted by Kitteh at 8:16 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 8:16 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]
I visited the site for a few weeks. Somewhat amusing, but overall I decided it was not for me...Very time consuming and not very rewarding.
posted by Czjewel at 8:26 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 8:26 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
a move many insiders see as calculated to undercut Biden's already precarious support from young voters
Who didn't see this coming?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:36 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
Who didn't see this coming?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:36 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
Brilliant young voter outreach by the GOP. Can't wait for their follow up bills criminalizing anime or calling for everyone born in the 00's to be hit in the throat with a pipe.
Biden will have to sign the bill, and they'll albatross that he's responsible to young ill-informed voters as hard as they possibly can.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:37 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
Biden will have to sign the bill, and they'll albatross that he's responsible to young ill-informed voters as hard as they possibly can.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:37 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
I’m pretty sure someone just paid him money, he’s extremely buyable right now.
He's been trying to cultivate a relationship with a mega-donor that is deeply invested in TikTok. This is well-known (randomly-chosen link).
a move many insiders see as calculated to undercut Biden's already precarious support from young voters
Or he's just a craven asshole, like he's been (pretty openly) his entire life, and yet people will still fall for the nine-dimensional chess routine because somehow the guy is fucking magic and everyone is so fucking desperate to throw the entire country to the fascist wolves they'll take any line and run with it as long as it gives them cover.
posted by aramaic at 8:48 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
He's been trying to cultivate a relationship with a mega-donor that is deeply invested in TikTok. This is well-known (randomly-chosen link).
a move many insiders see as calculated to undercut Biden's already precarious support from young voters
Or he's just a craven asshole, like he's been (pretty openly) his entire life, and yet people will still fall for the nine-dimensional chess routine because somehow the guy is fucking magic and everyone is so fucking desperate to throw the entire country to the fascist wolves they'll take any line and run with it as long as it gives them cover.
posted by aramaic at 8:48 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
The NSA brought your data on the open market. From the article:
The disclosures are the latest evidence that government agencies routinely buy sensitive information about Americans from commercial marketplaces that they would otherwise be required to obtain via court order.
Banning TikTok is just… pointless, at best. At worst it’s “America first” policies that do nothing, absolutely nothing, because methods to circumvent the stated aim - privacy protection - already in use by state actors.
posted by The River Ivel at 8:54 AM on March 13 [8 favorites]
The disclosures are the latest evidence that government agencies routinely buy sensitive information about Americans from commercial marketplaces that they would otherwise be required to obtain via court order.
Banning TikTok is just… pointless, at best. At worst it’s “America first” policies that do nothing, absolutely nothing, because methods to circumvent the stated aim - privacy protection - already in use by state actors.
posted by The River Ivel at 8:54 AM on March 13 [8 favorites]
This is really pretty simple. The CCP is a foreign adversary of the United States. We should not let a foreign adversary control a major media channel that has as much mindshare as TikTok does. We would not have let the Soviet Union buy up a bunch of TV networks in the 70s and 80s. We should not let the CCP control a major domestic social network today.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this bill make it through the House. I'm worried, though, that a combination of Trump's (likely purchased) opposition and free speech concerns will make this DOA in the Senate.
posted by dyslexictraveler at 9:06 AM on March 13 [13 favorites]
I was pleasantly surprised to see this bill make it through the House. I'm worried, though, that a combination of Trump's (likely purchased) opposition and free speech concerns will make this DOA in the Senate.
posted by dyslexictraveler at 9:06 AM on March 13 [13 favorites]
a middle aged white married guy in the us who signs up for tiktok is probably really into right-wing propoganda, anti-vax, and egirls.
This. It’s kind of why my partners Facebook reel feed is all half naked women and mine is all reels of people making memes about Rhysand and Feyre. They start at the most common denominator and then go from there. But it is a problem of amplification if people don’t know about it.
posted by corb at 9:06 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
This. It’s kind of why my partners Facebook reel feed is all half naked women and mine is all reels of people making memes about Rhysand and Feyre. They start at the most common denominator and then go from there. But it is a problem of amplification if people don’t know about it.
posted by corb at 9:06 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
Brilliant young voter outreach by the GOP. Can't wait for their follow up bills criminalizing anime or calling for everyone born in the 00's to be hit in the throat with a pipe. No notes, tip top thinking.
By the GOP? 155 House Democrats voted in favor, and Nancy Pelosi was among those making speeches arguing strenuously in favor of the bill's passage.
If Biden signs this (as he has said he will), young voters aren't going to be primarily blaming the GOP, I'll tell you what.
posted by Gadarene at 9:52 AM on March 13 [19 favorites]
By the GOP? 155 House Democrats voted in favor, and Nancy Pelosi was among those making speeches arguing strenuously in favor of the bill's passage.
If Biden signs this (as he has said he will), young voters aren't going to be primarily blaming the GOP, I'll tell you what.
posted by Gadarene at 9:52 AM on March 13 [19 favorites]
so the thing about thirst trap videos - sure, they're definitely lowest common denominator, they do say something about how the male gaze is very much still a culturally mediated thing, and so on
but also - these apps, all of them, they don't just track likes, saves, etc. they track how long you linger on a video, which parts of the screen you have the highest 'engagement' with, what video corresponds to which pixel-area of your screen real estate, what part of that real-estate stays at the 'eye' level or click level, etc
unless you are disgustedly, hurridely, and fastidiously hitting that 'Not Interested' button 100% of the time, you will be reintroduced to the content because everyone else in your demographic loves that shit
anyway, whenever someone tells you 'I dislike thirst trap videos but still get them' there's a good chance that they actually like that kind of content but feel some kind weird cognitive dissonance / shame around it. I say this bc all the openly horny folks I know get these videos all the time and the ace people I know have like zero of this content on their feed for very obvious reasons
posted by paimapi at 9:58 AM on March 13 [12 favorites]
but also - these apps, all of them, they don't just track likes, saves, etc. they track how long you linger on a video, which parts of the screen you have the highest 'engagement' with, what video corresponds to which pixel-area of your screen real estate, what part of that real-estate stays at the 'eye' level or click level, etc
unless you are disgustedly, hurridely, and fastidiously hitting that 'Not Interested' button 100% of the time, you will be reintroduced to the content because everyone else in your demographic loves that shit
anyway, whenever someone tells you 'I dislike thirst trap videos but still get them' there's a good chance that they actually like that kind of content but feel some kind weird cognitive dissonance / shame around it. I say this bc all the openly horny folks I know get these videos all the time and the ace people I know have like zero of this content on their feed for very obvious reasons
posted by paimapi at 9:58 AM on March 13 [12 favorites]
Yeah, I think folks are missing why this is happening now. This isn't just "what if this service is used to attempt to influence domestic politics", this is "this service is actively, openly being used to attempt influence domestic politics". That it's beholden to the CCP, which has an stranglehold on domestic internet access and uses the internet at home a tool of party control, is kind of a problem. The NSA is buying all your data from Facebook. That's bad! But they're not blocking your access to overseas sites, filtering out information critical of your government, or raiding your house because of something you tweeted. There's a lot of hysteria to be sorted through, but "the CCP uses the internet as an instrument of propaganda and control" is not something that's seriously contested.
posted by phooky at 10:02 AM on March 13 [16 favorites]
posted by phooky at 10:02 AM on March 13 [16 favorites]
If Biden signs this (as he has said he will), young voters aren't going to be primarily blaming the GOP, I'll tell you what.
Middle-of-the-road voters who are parents who want to protect their kids may see this as government doing something about exploitative social networks. Whereas TikTok-ing teens can't vote and the 18-24 turnout is already low, and not particularly motivated given other current events. On the balance, this may help Dems rather than hurt.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:16 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
Middle-of-the-road voters who are parents who want to protect their kids may see this as government doing something about exploitative social networks. Whereas TikTok-ing teens can't vote and the 18-24 turnout is already low, and not particularly motivated given other current events. On the balance, this may help Dems rather than hurt.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:16 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
Middle-of-the-road voters who are parents who want to protect their kids may see this as government doing something about exploitative social networks. Whereas TikTok-ing teens can't vote and the 18-24 turnout is already low, and not particularly motivated given other current events. On the balance, this may help Dems rather than hurt.
Lol yes totally democrats once again playing 12-d chess and making brilliant strategic decisions. "Welp alrighty then fuck the youth vote, it's a wrap, they don't vote already, so don't consider them at all actually!" Let one of their primary experiences with politics shaping their material lives be that of a democratic administration taking their favorite toy away and pissing them off immensely, and Ummm This Could Be Good Actually because maybe possibly hopefully some hypothetical little fraction of the Concerned Parents and Centrist WSJ Reading China Hawk demographic could...switch from Trump to Biden in swing states?
Yes maybe this will be the one where democrats successfully outflank republicans on dumb right wing shit, we have to keep the faith and keep trying yall.
posted by windbox at 10:33 AM on March 13 [18 favorites]
Lol yes totally democrats once again playing 12-d chess and making brilliant strategic decisions. "Welp alrighty then fuck the youth vote, it's a wrap, they don't vote already, so don't consider them at all actually!" Let one of their primary experiences with politics shaping their material lives be that of a democratic administration taking their favorite toy away and pissing them off immensely, and Ummm This Could Be Good Actually because maybe possibly hopefully some hypothetical little fraction of the Concerned Parents and Centrist WSJ Reading China Hawk demographic could...switch from Trump to Biden in swing states?
Yes maybe this will be the one where democrats successfully outflank republicans on dumb right wing shit, we have to keep the faith and keep trying yall.
posted by windbox at 10:33 AM on March 13 [18 favorites]
Metafilter: Very time consuming and not very rewarding
posted by credulous at 10:57 AM on March 13 [8 favorites]
posted by credulous at 10:57 AM on March 13 [8 favorites]
pretty sure someone just paid him money, he's extremely buyable right now
This is correct:
But Trump, surprisingly, came out vehemently against the TikTok bill, saying that would only help Mark Zuckerberg, the ‘true enemy of the people.’ It turns out Trump had just met with a billionaire owner of a chunk of TikTok, China-linked conservative Jeff Yass, and pronounced himself ‘back in love’ with Yass’s political group, the Club for Growth, and the financial support that comes with it.
posted by subdee at 11:01 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
This is correct:
But Trump, surprisingly, came out vehemently against the TikTok bill, saying that would only help Mark Zuckerberg, the ‘true enemy of the people.’ It turns out Trump had just met with a billionaire owner of a chunk of TikTok, China-linked conservative Jeff Yass, and pronounced himself ‘back in love’ with Yass’s political group, the Club for Growth, and the financial support that comes with it.
posted by subdee at 11:01 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]
i think one difference is tiktok/bytedance aggressively fomenting a genocide, whereas facebook/meta was crucial in the genocide of the rohingya and whatsapp/meta has been repeatedly used to whip up violent mobs to commit massacres
has bytedance been involved in, say, what's happening in xinjiang? i'm not sure. but there hasn't been anything like cambridge analytica that's come out yet either, so.
but yeah, go ahead and ban it. nothing like good ol' american protectionism.
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:05 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
has bytedance been involved in, say, what's happening in xinjiang? i'm not sure. but there hasn't been anything like cambridge analytica that's come out yet either, so.
but yeah, go ahead and ban it. nothing like good ol' american protectionism.
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:05 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
it's giving gerontocracy
posted by uncleozzy at 11:33 AM on March 13 [10 favorites]
posted by uncleozzy at 11:33 AM on March 13 [10 favorites]
i used to be someone else, can you unpack that first paragraph some more?
Genuinely interested, hadn't read about that at all.
posted by kittensofthenight at 11:36 AM on March 13
Genuinely interested, hadn't read about that at all.
posted by kittensofthenight at 11:36 AM on March 13
Not gonna read the whole thread, but has anyone else seen the angle that the "why now?" Of the potential tiktok sale/ban isn't just the upcoming US election, but also how much pro-Palestine stuff there is on TikTok?
https://www.tumblr.com/magicalgirlpenny/744860128511180800?source=share
posted by subdee at 11:37 AM on March 13 [8 favorites]
https://www.tumblr.com/magicalgirlpenny/744860128511180800?source=share
posted by subdee at 11:37 AM on March 13 [8 favorites]
Lol yes totally democrats once again playing 12-d chess and making brilliant strategic decisions.
It's probably a lot to expect them to play 12D chess, but if you think this hasn't been number-crunched by political statisticians in the backroom, I don't know what else to tell you except that disagreement with me for the sake of disagreement won't make you any less wrong. Good luck.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:38 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
It's probably a lot to expect them to play 12D chess, but if you think this hasn't been number-crunched by political statisticians in the backroom, I don't know what else to tell you except that disagreement with me for the sake of disagreement won't make you any less wrong. Good luck.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:38 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
I find a huge benefit to having developed a low tolerance for any kind of video/moving pictures. I don't look at Tiktok, and generally skip anything more than shorts, typically, animals.
posted by Goofyy at 11:46 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
posted by Goofyy at 11:46 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]
This is really pretty simple. The CCP is a foreign adversary of the United States. We should not let a foreign adversary control a major media channel that has as much mindshare as TikTok does
It certainly might not be in the interest of US politicians and corporations, but why should the rest of us care? I mean, none of us were consulted when the government decided that China was an adversary.
This isn't just "what if this service is used to attempt to influence domestic politics", this is "this service is actively, openly being used to attempt influence domestic politics".
If you mean they are influencing Chinese domestic politics, how would blocking the app in the US help? If you mean influencing US politics, how? Other than asking users to ask their congresspeople not to ban the app, they seem pretty willing to host whatever sort of political opinion people want to put on there. The notion that China is particularly pulling for Trump to regain power seems odd.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 11:47 AM on March 13 [7 favorites]
It certainly might not be in the interest of US politicians and corporations, but why should the rest of us care? I mean, none of us were consulted when the government decided that China was an adversary.
This isn't just "what if this service is used to attempt to influence domestic politics", this is "this service is actively, openly being used to attempt influence domestic politics".
If you mean they are influencing Chinese domestic politics, how would blocking the app in the US help? If you mean influencing US politics, how? Other than asking users to ask their congresspeople not to ban the app, they seem pretty willing to host whatever sort of political opinion people want to put on there. The notion that China is particularly pulling for Trump to regain power seems odd.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 11:47 AM on March 13 [7 favorites]
anyway, whenever someone tells you 'I dislike thirst trap videos but still get them' there's a good chance that they actually like that kind of content
yeah the thing is (as you also say) it doesn’t take a whole lot of engagement to get the recommendations, and how surprised are you really that people you know linger on sexualized images sometimes?
this goes for ideological stuff, too, though - if you linger to be outraged the algorithm may still take that as an indication to feed you more
posted by atoxyl at 11:48 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]
yeah the thing is (as you also say) it doesn’t take a whole lot of engagement to get the recommendations, and how surprised are you really that people you know linger on sexualized images sometimes?
this goes for ideological stuff, too, though - if you linger to be outraged the algorithm may still take that as an indication to feed you more
posted by atoxyl at 11:48 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]
People keep saying ban. They’re forcing Bytedance to sell - it’s way too much user-attention to let vanish, so someone will pick it up. The service is going to continue, but the parent company is casually at the mercy of the CCP in ways that our system is only barely able to reproduce under the most extreme circumstances (lawyers: FISA + national security gag order on the warrant, right?).
This is a good thing. Trump raging against TikTok was his right-thing-for-the-wrong-reasons stopped clock moment. It was and is a massive security risk both in terms of intelligence gathering and political influence. The United States government is in no way morally superior to the CCP - maybe our southern border isn’t Uyghur reeducation camps but that’s an increasingly quantitative-rather-than-qualitative difference, and the global reach of our exported harm is far greater. Given the option I would rather be harmed by, and unwillingly complicit in, only one of the two rather than both. That seems pretty straightforward.
As to the algorithm in general (not TikTok): I’m a 40-something white straight cis-male programmer, gamer, and anime fan who had been living in Texas for five years until eighteen months ago. I’m also an intersectional marxist (real capital-M Marxists would say socialist), and hate pretty much everything my demographic is uniquely associated with. I had mostly wrestled the algorithm into not showing me overt Nazi shit until my divorce, which predictably kicked it into extreme overdrive. Went from “you must be a Nazi” (assumption), to “you MUST be a Nazi” (unrelenting insistence).
Prior to that I had to report 20 Shapiro/Peterson DESTROYS videos as hate speech every six months like clockwork. After, 100 a week wasn’t sufficient. Moving back to Boston and subscribing to a couple dozen openly marxist Facebook groups mostly fixed it. Even so: the six month timer dinged two days ago, new crop of Peterson videos, only ten reported this time and they’re gone. Back to neural network lectures, anime memes (the algorithm has very little difficulty understanding my zero tolerance for underage shit, a nuance which makes the appalling broad strokes failures above that much worse), and sailing-on-a-budget.
I have zero difficulty with thirst trap anything, which I assume is due to never even once watching porn outside an incognito window. My consumption isn’t any less than any other dude, but my browser history is flawless in that respect and it seems to tip the scale.
Instagram is just 99% cat videos / 1% sailing for me. Blame my co-workers.
posted by Ryvar at 11:56 AM on March 13 [14 favorites]
This is a good thing. Trump raging against TikTok was his right-thing-for-the-wrong-reasons stopped clock moment. It was and is a massive security risk both in terms of intelligence gathering and political influence. The United States government is in no way morally superior to the CCP - maybe our southern border isn’t Uyghur reeducation camps but that’s an increasingly quantitative-rather-than-qualitative difference, and the global reach of our exported harm is far greater. Given the option I would rather be harmed by, and unwillingly complicit in, only one of the two rather than both. That seems pretty straightforward.
As to the algorithm in general (not TikTok): I’m a 40-something white straight cis-male programmer, gamer, and anime fan who had been living in Texas for five years until eighteen months ago. I’m also an intersectional marxist (real capital-M Marxists would say socialist), and hate pretty much everything my demographic is uniquely associated with. I had mostly wrestled the algorithm into not showing me overt Nazi shit until my divorce, which predictably kicked it into extreme overdrive. Went from “you must be a Nazi” (assumption), to “you MUST be a Nazi” (unrelenting insistence).
Prior to that I had to report 20 Shapiro/Peterson DESTROYS videos as hate speech every six months like clockwork. After, 100 a week wasn’t sufficient. Moving back to Boston and subscribing to a couple dozen openly marxist Facebook groups mostly fixed it. Even so: the six month timer dinged two days ago, new crop of Peterson videos, only ten reported this time and they’re gone. Back to neural network lectures, anime memes (the algorithm has very little difficulty understanding my zero tolerance for underage shit, a nuance which makes the appalling broad strokes failures above that much worse), and sailing-on-a-budget.
I have zero difficulty with thirst trap anything, which I assume is due to never even once watching porn outside an incognito window. My consumption isn’t any less than any other dude, but my browser history is flawless in that respect and it seems to tip the scale.
Instagram is just 99% cat videos / 1% sailing for me. Blame my co-workers.
posted by Ryvar at 11:56 AM on March 13 [14 favorites]
a middle aged white married guy in the us who signs up for tiktok is probably really into right-wing propoganda, anti-vax, and egirls. they're not guessing out of thin air. they know who you are before you sign up.
Oh, god, is this why Youtube keeps recommending "anti-woke" BS and live feeds of sermons from Midwestern churches, no matter how many times I click "I do not like this" and "do not recommend channel" (and despite all the pro-science, lefty and trans activist stuff I actually do watch)? It felt like they were trying to convert me, but maybe they're just looking at my demographic profile and deciding that I simply must be a MAGA bozo!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 12:00 PM on March 13 [10 favorites]
Oh, god, is this why Youtube keeps recommending "anti-woke" BS and live feeds of sermons from Midwestern churches, no matter how many times I click "I do not like this" and "do not recommend channel" (and despite all the pro-science, lefty and trans activist stuff I actually do watch)? It felt like they were trying to convert me, but maybe they're just looking at my demographic profile and deciding that I simply must be a MAGA bozo!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 12:00 PM on March 13 [10 favorites]
Oh, god, is this why Youtube keeps recommending "anti-woke" BS
Yes.
no matter how many times I click "I do not like this" and "do not recommend channel"
That’s not entirely useless but reporting as hate speech is what I find really moves the needle, as someone at the most extreme end of demographic correlation with Nazi conservativism.
posted by Ryvar at 12:08 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]
Yes.
no matter how many times I click "I do not like this" and "do not recommend channel"
That’s not entirely useless but reporting as hate speech is what I find really moves the needle, as someone at the most extreme end of demographic correlation with Nazi conservativism.
posted by Ryvar at 12:08 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]
These surveillance capitalism apps have altogether too much of our attention—attention that, in a better world, would be spent on a place like metafilter.
Here you only have to contend with relatively tame Piwik/Matomo analytics, and every time administration so much as thinks about sending an unprompted email a new committee is born to adjudicate the matter.
posted by otsebyatina at 12:11 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]
Here you only have to contend with relatively tame Piwik/Matomo analytics, and every time administration so much as thinks about sending an unprompted email a new committee is born to adjudicate the matter.
posted by otsebyatina at 12:11 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]
This is really pretty simple. The CCP is a foreign adversary of the United States. We should not let a foreign adversary control a major media channel that has as much mindshare as TikTok does. We would not have let the Soviet Union buy up a bunch of TV networks in the 70s and 80s. We should not let the CCP control a major domestic social network today.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this bill make it through the House. I'm worried, though, that a combination of Trump's (likely purchased) opposition and free speech concerns will make this DOA in the Senate.
As another user said earlier in the thread, why on earth would I care? The CCP is a foreign adversary of the United States but it's not a foreign adversary of me. The United States government poses far greater danger to me than the CCP does.
Multiple lawmakers have been very open that Tiktok's pro-Palestinian bent is a part of why there is so much current interest in it on the legislative level. Which is hilarious to me because they actually shadowban and filter out a lot of Palestinian content. The reason people are more pro-Palestinian on Tiktok is because more people on Tiktok are young and young people are more pro-Palestine. They are not going to become Zionists because Tiktok is banned, which seems to be what lawmakers are counting on.
posted by lizard2590 at 12:17 PM on March 13 [12 favorites]
I was pleasantly surprised to see this bill make it through the House. I'm worried, though, that a combination of Trump's (likely purchased) opposition and free speech concerns will make this DOA in the Senate.
As another user said earlier in the thread, why on earth would I care? The CCP is a foreign adversary of the United States but it's not a foreign adversary of me. The United States government poses far greater danger to me than the CCP does.
Multiple lawmakers have been very open that Tiktok's pro-Palestinian bent is a part of why there is so much current interest in it on the legislative level. Which is hilarious to me because they actually shadowban and filter out a lot of Palestinian content. The reason people are more pro-Palestinian on Tiktok is because more people on Tiktok are young and young people are more pro-Palestine. They are not going to become Zionists because Tiktok is banned, which seems to be what lawmakers are counting on.
posted by lizard2590 at 12:17 PM on March 13 [12 favorites]
That’s not entirely useless but reporting as hate speech
I tried this; did you know there's a place to see how your reporting went? 99% of the horrible misinformation and violent content I reported got marked "not a violation". Reporting had less effect than saying "I don't like this", but way less effect than following things you do like. Which is hard, seeing all it did is show me things I don't like, so why would I follow anybody? I had to use Google to find people to follow; TikTok's search is not very helpful unless you know their literal handle.
But, right now on TikTok I can scroll a bit and see home improvement videos and cute animal videos (which I never followed, but didn't downvote, so I guess that's acceptance), but there's nothing that amazing that I want to stop and watch, before it gently starts inserting videos that I definitely don't want to see. I can switch to "only things I follow" and run out of new content in a couple minutes, which is probably about all the time I need to spend there (that's the length of time I spend on Facebook and Instagram too -- once I start to see 'suggested' things, boom, close the app).
Regarding the "internet is for porn" -- the difference is there is if I'm in the mood for that, there's a destination to go retrieve that kind of content. Instagram's or TikTok's algorithms deciding that any time is a good time to see boobs is....weird.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:28 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]
I tried this; did you know there's a place to see how your reporting went? 99% of the horrible misinformation and violent content I reported got marked "not a violation". Reporting had less effect than saying "I don't like this", but way less effect than following things you do like. Which is hard, seeing all it did is show me things I don't like, so why would I follow anybody? I had to use Google to find people to follow; TikTok's search is not very helpful unless you know their literal handle.
But, right now on TikTok I can scroll a bit and see home improvement videos and cute animal videos (which I never followed, but didn't downvote, so I guess that's acceptance), but there's nothing that amazing that I want to stop and watch, before it gently starts inserting videos that I definitely don't want to see. I can switch to "only things I follow" and run out of new content in a couple minutes, which is probably about all the time I need to spend there (that's the length of time I spend on Facebook and Instagram too -- once I start to see 'suggested' things, boom, close the app).
Regarding the "internet is for porn" -- the difference is there is if I'm in the mood for that, there's a destination to go retrieve that kind of content. Instagram's or TikTok's algorithms deciding that any time is a good time to see boobs is....weird.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:28 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]
CCP is a foreign adversary of the United States but it's not a foreign adversary of me.
This is a common sense approach. I don't think the ban will affect you unlike the other 15 countries instituting the full or partial ban.
posted by clavdivs at 12:49 PM on March 13
This is a common sense approach. I don't think the ban will affect you unlike the other 15 countries instituting the full or partial ban.
posted by clavdivs at 12:49 PM on March 13
If you mean influencing US politics, how?
They literally sent out a targeted alert through their app urging users to contact their Congressional representatives! Read the links in the FPP; it's pretty blunt.
They literally sent out a targeted alert through their app urging users to contact their Congressional representatives! Read the links in the FPP; it's pretty blunt.
Callers range from teenagers to the elderly, and most are "really confused and are calling because 'TikTok told me to'", one Republican staffer revealed.posted by phooky at 1:04 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]
[...]
Florida Congressman Neal Dunn's office told the BBC it has received more than 900 calls from TikTokers, "many of which were vulnerable school-aged children" and some of whose extreme rhetoric had to be flagged for security reasons.
They literally sent out a targeted alert through their app urging users to contact their Congressional representatives! Read the links in the FPP; it's pretty blunt.
Yes. Is that a problem? This isn't some insidious astroturfing campaign or election interference. It is asking people to take a concern to their representatives.
The threat is escaping me.
This is a common sense approach. I don't think the ban will affect you unlike the other 15 countries instituting the full or partial ban.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or if I am misunderstanding you.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 1:16 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]
Yes. Is that a problem? This isn't some insidious astroturfing campaign or election interference. It is asking people to take a concern to their representatives.
The threat is escaping me.
This is a common sense approach. I don't think the ban will affect you unlike the other 15 countries instituting the full or partial ban.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or if I am misunderstanding you.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 1:16 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or if I am misunderstanding you.
clavdivs keeps me guessing too, it's why we loves 'em
posted by elkevelvet at 1:37 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]
clavdivs keeps me guessing too, it's why we loves 'em
posted by elkevelvet at 1:37 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]
I don't use TikTok, but until very recently I kept my Huawei phone.
Was this phone a national security risk? Absolutely I bet it was and t probably collected all kinds of backdoor information to report to the CCP (just as an example, the phone would display a warning and stop working if you covered the front camera). If I had a government or military job with a security clearance - I don't, I'm a high school math teacher - I would have given it up right away.
But reader, it was a nice phone. The specs were great and you couldn't beat the price because the Chinese government wanted me to have it. And why should I care what kind of information the CCP knows about me? What can they do with that information (to me, personally)? Odds are, the US government or Facebook having access to that same information would affect me more.
I imagine it's similar with TikTok - not just an issue with influence operations, but who knows what kind of information that app is collecting from people's smartphones and reporting back to the mothership? Probably tons of stuff it's not supposed to. Does this matter to an individual person? No, at least not in an immediate way. Does it matter to the US government? Absolutely yes.
****
The concern about a foreign power owning a major social media platform looks very provincial to every other person on this planet, who doesn't live in the US or China though. (Maybe Russia, too.)
posted by subdee at 1:37 PM on March 13 [9 favorites]
Was this phone a national security risk? Absolutely I bet it was and t probably collected all kinds of backdoor information to report to the CCP (just as an example, the phone would display a warning and stop working if you covered the front camera). If I had a government or military job with a security clearance - I don't, I'm a high school math teacher - I would have given it up right away.
But reader, it was a nice phone. The specs were great and you couldn't beat the price because the Chinese government wanted me to have it. And why should I care what kind of information the CCP knows about me? What can they do with that information (to me, personally)? Odds are, the US government or Facebook having access to that same information would affect me more.
I imagine it's similar with TikTok - not just an issue with influence operations, but who knows what kind of information that app is collecting from people's smartphones and reporting back to the mothership? Probably tons of stuff it's not supposed to. Does this matter to an individual person? No, at least not in an immediate way. Does it matter to the US government? Absolutely yes.
****
The concern about a foreign power owning a major social media platform looks very provincial to every other person on this planet, who doesn't live in the US or China though. (Maybe Russia, too.)
posted by subdee at 1:37 PM on March 13 [9 favorites]
ah, the ban is largely for the App not be in goverment employees phone. This shouldn't affect non governmental users use of the platform.
posted by clavdivs at 1:37 PM on March 13
posted by clavdivs at 1:37 PM on March 13
is it true that one cannot access tiktok in China without a VPN and VPN pretty much illegal or highly restricted.
The threat is escaping me.
posted by clavdivs at 1:46 PM on March 13
The threat is escaping me.
posted by clavdivs at 1:46 PM on March 13
Along with many other users, I truly could not care less about the CCP spying on our memes.
But what I'm surprised hasn't made it to the thread is like, maybe an in-phone service providing endless short video content that's at least anecdatally both addictive and unrewarding and which, again anecdatally, seems to have the power to shorten one's attention span (I had to get off the old man's TikTok, YouTube shorts, because it was making it harder for me to read a book), maybe that kind of service is just straight up a net negative.
Forgetting all the conservative/QAnon/fascist content, even if it were all fun cat videos, maybe TikTok is just, like, bad for us.
posted by TheProfessor at 1:52 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]
But what I'm surprised hasn't made it to the thread is like, maybe an in-phone service providing endless short video content that's at least anecdatally both addictive and unrewarding and which, again anecdatally, seems to have the power to shorten one's attention span (I had to get off the old man's TikTok, YouTube shorts, because it was making it harder for me to read a book), maybe that kind of service is just straight up a net negative.
Forgetting all the conservative/QAnon/fascist content, even if it were all fun cat videos, maybe TikTok is just, like, bad for us.
posted by TheProfessor at 1:52 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]
I simply must be a MAGA bozo!
posted by Ursula Hitler
Eponysterical???
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:56 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]
posted by Ursula Hitler
Eponysterical???
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:56 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]
clavdivs: "ah, the ban is largely for the App not be in goverment employees phone. This shouldn't affect non governmental users use of the platform."
The bill would absolutely ban TikTok for everyone in the US (technically it requires ByteDance to divest, but the app's high valuation plus Chinese laws aimed at barring sale to Western buyers make that a tall order).
clavdivs: "is it true that one cannot access tiktok in China without a VPN and VPN pretty much illegal or highly restricted."
TikTok isn't available for regular Chinese users, but obviously ByteDance employees and relevant government minders will have privileged access. This is mainly because ByteDance operates an identical app, Douyin, for the Chinese market. Interestingly, that one uses an entirely different algorithm that is apparently more edifying than the international version:
The bill would absolutely ban TikTok for everyone in the US (technically it requires ByteDance to divest, but the app's high valuation plus Chinese laws aimed at barring sale to Western buyers make that a tall order).
clavdivs: "is it true that one cannot access tiktok in China without a VPN and VPN pretty much illegal or highly restricted."
TikTok isn't available for regular Chinese users, but obviously ByteDance employees and relevant government minders will have privileged access. This is mainly because ByteDance operates an identical app, Douyin, for the Chinese market. Interestingly, that one uses an entirely different algorithm that is apparently more edifying than the international version:
Although they’re both owned by ByteDance, Douyin — China’s version of TikTok — offers a different version of the social media app that is unavailable to the rest of the world, especially for children.posted by Rhaomi at 1:57 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]
“It’s almost like they recognize that technology is influencing kids’ development, and they make their domestic version a spinach version of TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world,” Tristan Harris, a former Google employee, and advocate for social media ethics, said of China’s approach to TikTok.
“If you’re under 14 years old, they show you science experiments you can do at home, museum exhibits, patriotism videos and educational videos,” said Harris, according to “60 Minutes,” adding that children in China were limited to only 40 minutes a day on the app.
“There’s a survey of pre-teens in the U.S. and China asking, ‘what is the most aspirational career that you want to have?’ and in the U.S., the No. 1 was a social media influencer, and in China, the No. 1 was astronaut,” Harris said. “You allow those two societies to play out for a few generations and I can tell you what your world is going to look like.”
i used to be someone else, can you unpack that first paragraph some more?@kittensofthenight:
Genuinely interested, hadn't read about that at all.
i think one difference is tiktok/bytedance aggressively fomenting a genocide, whereas facebook/meta was crucial in the genocide of the rohingya and whatsapp/meta has been repeatedly used to whip up violent mobs to commit massacres
so i dropped a word there; i'm not familiar with tiktok/bytedance helping whip one up, but in terms of facebook/meta and whatsapp/meta:
facebook:
Amnesty International: Facebook refused to enforce policies on hate speech, allowing it to flourish, and this meant that anti-Rohingya sentiment got reinforced and amplified and then algorithmically spread in Myanmar
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Tatmadaw personnel used Facebook and intentionally flooded it with anti-Rohingya content; Facebook's algorithms amplified it and they didn't bother investing in any sort of understanding of the market where it was, essentially the only internet (this report also goes into Facebook's failure in Ethiopia and Tigray)
AP: Facebook approved anti-Rohingya ads, likely because of a lack of resources or care
Reuters: Facebook blames technical limitations but was still slow to respond.
it's ongoing, too: wikipedia
whatsapp:
wired: misinformation spread on whatsapp leads to mobs killing random people where it is a dominant messaging/pseudo-social networking platform
npr: same as above
washington post: same as above
wikipedia: it's enough to be notable
posted by i used to be someone else at 2:10 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]
I can only hope TikTok gets banned in the EU eventually. I would also like to see Meta, X etc. burn, sure. But that is neither here nor there in reference to the fact that the world would be a better place without TikTok.
Gotta start somewhere.
posted by jklaiho at 2:16 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]
Gotta start somewhere.
posted by jklaiho at 2:16 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]
Eponysterical???
I've been posting crabby lefty trans stuff on Metafilter since 2012, and my previous comment in this thread was literally my 2000th on the main site. But here we are, in 2024, and somebody's cracking nazi jokes about my stupid name. 'Twas ever thus.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:17 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]
I've been posting crabby lefty trans stuff on Metafilter since 2012, and my previous comment in this thread was literally my 2000th on the main site. But here we are, in 2024, and somebody's cracking nazi jokes about my stupid name. 'Twas ever thus.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:17 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]
I would like to suggest that y'all should be concerned about the CCP spying on your memes. The purpose of any social media platform is to harvest massive amounts of extremely fine-grained personal information about hundreds of millions of people. We know that kind of data is highly amenable to misuse by malicious actors. And we also know that the Chinese state is very interested in surveilling and exercising control over people well beyond its borders. It has absolutely spread disinformation and attempted to influence elections here in Canada and presumably elsewhere, in part via social media. It has been found to be operating unauthorized extraterritorial police stations in the US, UK, and Canada. People with loved ones in China have learned that they have to be careful what they say publicly about the CCP. There are real concerns here, and they're not just hypothetical.
I completely agree that US-based social media is problematic in the same ways and that Washington's attempt to drum up a new cold war is bullshit. And I'm not saying anyone is a bad person for using these platforms. But I don't think we should minimize the issues with TikTok either.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 3:07 PM on March 13 [17 favorites]
I completely agree that US-based social media is problematic in the same ways and that Washington's attempt to drum up a new cold war is bullshit. And I'm not saying anyone is a bad person for using these platforms. But I don't think we should minimize the issues with TikTok either.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 3:07 PM on March 13 [17 favorites]
It’s less I don’t think anyone should address the issues and more I think attempting to address the issues by banning TikTok is a sham pretense of addressing the issues and in fact allows them to pretend the issues don’t really exist.
posted by Artw at 3:11 PM on March 13 [9 favorites]
posted by Artw at 3:11 PM on March 13 [9 favorites]
and in the U.S., the No. 1 was a social media influencer
interesting. "New data from Morning Consult shows the career may continue to grow. According to the report, 57% of people in Gen-Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) say they’d be an influencer if the opportunity presented itself. That number is virtually the same as in 2019 (57%)."
5 years and still over half. Seems 3 in 10 would pay to become an influencer.
not sure if that's an oxymoron or a business investment.
So this is more about a legal divestment of bytedance from tiktok for potential national security problems and the possibility of negative influence upon American users.
I see the conundrum.
posted by clavdivs at 3:19 PM on March 13
interesting. "New data from Morning Consult shows the career may continue to grow. According to the report, 57% of people in Gen-Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) say they’d be an influencer if the opportunity presented itself. That number is virtually the same as in 2019 (57%)."
5 years and still over half. Seems 3 in 10 would pay to become an influencer.
not sure if that's an oxymoron or a business investment.
So this is more about a legal divestment of bytedance from tiktok for potential national security problems and the possibility of negative influence upon American users.
I see the conundrum.
posted by clavdivs at 3:19 PM on March 13
When dealing with propaganda, especially finely-tuned propaganda from an authoritarian regime whose existence depends on propaganda, it's important to remember that one of the first and most vital functions of propaganda is to convince the user that they are immune to propaganda.
posted by MrVisible at 3:43 PM on March 13 [13 favorites]
posted by MrVisible at 3:43 PM on March 13 [13 favorites]
The "Here are the countries that have bans on TikTok" link in the OP seems very inaccurate; it conflates total, country-wide bans (obviously gross and bad) with restrictions on what government employees are allowed to have on their work devices (obviously fine; government employees should probably have completely locked-down work devices because government data security is a Big Deal).
Really, this amounts to the US government affirming that US corporations are entirely allowed to surveil, track, and mislead their own citizens, and sell that data to everyone from Axciom to ICE, but how dare China think it's allowed to do the same thing? Which is obviously fucking vile, frankly, as nearly all US citizens are at vastly greater risk from US surveillance, tracking, and law enforcement than we are from China.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:21 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]
Really, this amounts to the US government affirming that US corporations are entirely allowed to surveil, track, and mislead their own citizens, and sell that data to everyone from Axciom to ICE, but how dare China think it's allowed to do the same thing? Which is obviously fucking vile, frankly, as nearly all US citizens are at vastly greater risk from US surveillance, tracking, and law enforcement than we are from China.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:21 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]
I think trump will immediately go from a 60% chance of winning the election to 75% when Biden signs this ban into law.
If you sign up for Tiktok the first thing you need to do is start searching for queer people you follow on other platforms and follow them on Tiktok.
This tells the Tiktok algorithm to start showing you the good queer content and not the terrible lowest common denominator stuff new accounts usually get.
posted by zymil at 4:46 PM on March 13 [6 favorites]
If you sign up for Tiktok the first thing you need to do is start searching for queer people you follow on other platforms and follow them on Tiktok.
This tells the Tiktok algorithm to start showing you the good queer content and not the terrible lowest common denominator stuff new accounts usually get.
posted by zymil at 4:46 PM on March 13 [6 favorites]
They literally sent out a targeted alert through their app urging users to contact their Congressional representatives! Read the links in the FPP; it's pretty blunt.
ooooo spooooooky
Lyft and Uber did the exact same thing to influence votes directly in CA, and it worked. They are both far more harmful to our society than TikTok is. I don't understand why having it forcibly owned by a US company is a good thing.
posted by graventy at 4:58 PM on March 13 [11 favorites]
ooooo spooooooky
Lyft and Uber did the exact same thing to influence votes directly in CA, and it worked. They are both far more harmful to our society than TikTok is. I don't understand why having it forcibly owned by a US company is a good thing.
posted by graventy at 4:58 PM on March 13 [11 favorites]
short video content that's at least anecdatally both addictive and unrewarding and which, again anecdatally, seems to have the power to shorten one's attention span
it would take someone with a truly heroic surfeit of attention to take the five minutes of searching online to see if someone has written in depth about a random hot take/hunch you have (not me of course - I am on Tiktok and thus am incapable of concentrating on one thing for more than five secon-
posted by paimapi at 5:06 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]
it would take someone with a truly heroic surfeit of attention to take the five minutes of searching online to see if someone has written in depth about a random hot take/hunch you have (not me of course - I am on Tiktok and thus am incapable of concentrating on one thing for more than five secon-
posted by paimapi at 5:06 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]
It's a poorly written bill that allows the president to ban any app funded by an adversarial government. Glad to see us establishing our own Great Firewall.
posted by graventy at 5:07 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]
posted by graventy at 5:07 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]
I tried this; did you know there's a place to see how your reporting went? 99% of the horrible misinformation and violent content I reported got marked "not a violation".
I’ve seen it, and maybe constantly reporting things as hate speech and having that denied in review is getting me internally flagged as oversensitive or whatever and inadvertently getting me what I want. All I can say is that no matter the platform-level outcome, the impact on my personal feed is palpably better than simply indicating disinterest or blocking a specific channel. YMMV.
Which is obviously fucking vile, frankly, as nearly all US citizens are at vastly greater risk from US surveillance, tracking, and law enforcement than we are from China
Fully agreed the bill is hypocritical as shit. That said, if the options are being subject to both USG and CCP fuckery or only USG, then less is better even if what I actually want is zero. Zero should be an option, but it isn’t, so I’ll take “less bad” and only grumble a little, same as when I vote for Biden. Same as when I voted for Hillary. Same as every vote in my life except Obama and - hopefully in the future - AOC.
posted by Ryvar at 5:24 PM on March 13 [6 favorites]
I’ve seen it, and maybe constantly reporting things as hate speech and having that denied in review is getting me internally flagged as oversensitive or whatever and inadvertently getting me what I want. All I can say is that no matter the platform-level outcome, the impact on my personal feed is palpably better than simply indicating disinterest or blocking a specific channel. YMMV.
Which is obviously fucking vile, frankly, as nearly all US citizens are at vastly greater risk from US surveillance, tracking, and law enforcement than we are from China
Fully agreed the bill is hypocritical as shit. That said, if the options are being subject to both USG and CCP fuckery or only USG, then less is better even if what I actually want is zero. Zero should be an option, but it isn’t, so I’ll take “less bad” and only grumble a little, same as when I vote for Biden. Same as when I voted for Hillary. Same as every vote in my life except Obama and - hopefully in the future - AOC.
posted by Ryvar at 5:24 PM on March 13 [6 favorites]
I hardly ever see alt-right content on my FYP. Right now it's largely autism/ADHD, Palestine, disability rights, activist discourse on the Left (sometimes exhausting but not often harmful), the occasional meme, anime/cosplay, school, Ultimate World Cruise, and stuff from my favorite video games. (Also for some reason kids' video games?) Didn't take at all long to get my FYP to show this too.
Speaking of Palestine: there are a couple of people from Palestine using TikTok to live report on the conditions on the ground. My most successful video to date has been about Palestine. It's not really that hard to get the content you want on there.
posted by creatrixtiara at 5:27 PM on March 13 [14 favorites]
Speaking of Palestine: there are a couple of people from Palestine using TikTok to live report on the conditions on the ground. My most successful video to date has been about Palestine. It's not really that hard to get the content you want on there.
posted by creatrixtiara at 5:27 PM on March 13 [14 favorites]
Undoubtedly one of the reasons Pelosi voted to kill it.
posted by Artw at 5:44 PM on March 13 [7 favorites]
posted by Artw at 5:44 PM on March 13 [7 favorites]
France announced Friday it is banning the “recreational” use of TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and other apps on government employees’ phones because...
that is clever about recreational use.
posted by clavdivs at 5:44 PM on March 13
that is clever about recreational use.
posted by clavdivs at 5:44 PM on March 13
I will say this about Tiktok - the app not the content. Back in 2022, when I was being harassed online with some occasional swerves into offline, one of the assholes texted me using - apparently - his real phone number. I happened to install Tiktok at the time and I let it populate my friend group using my, at the time rather sparse address book and, lo and behold!, that's how I identified one of them. That was a very satisfying police report.
Anyways, be careful if you don't want to be found.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 5:46 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]
Anyways, be careful if you don't want to be found.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 5:46 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]
(Though I question whether the schmuck who seemed to be fingered by his phone number was indeed the culprit. Likely not given the reasons for it seemed to be my identification of online subterfuge. But, oh well)
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 5:57 PM on March 13
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 5:57 PM on March 13
I hate the TikTok discourse because I think so much of the premises it operates on is mere innuendo - the basic argument is "Well, you can't prove it's not doing this!" then proceeds as if it's a fact. The actual facts that have been established are remarkably sparse and their interpretation questionable. I'm sure it collects whatever data it's allowed to glean from your usage, but I'm not convinced it's uniquely egregious or for nefarious purposes (besides making ByteDance as much money as humanly possible). If you have a smoking gun that the CPC is feeding people brainrot on TikTok then by all means show it. The most substantive reporting I've seen is the Buzzfeed article yet nobody seems to have taken a critical reading towards it:
Further up this thread somebody noted that Douyin shows kids in China educational content and implied their failure to do so elsewhere was evidence of malintent, to which I would ask: so do you want TikTok to put their finger on the scale and determine what people are watching or not? I remember when the original line of allegations was that it censored content unfriendly to China - it sure seems like the complaints boil down to "TikTok isn't showing what I think it should" instead of some principle that can actually be implemented.
If you're concerned about China getting their hands on Americans' data, might I also direct your attention to the NSA just buying up American data? If China really wanted it, they'd just do the same. Like many popular things, the anti-TikTok hysteria is a perfect confluence of many motivations:
1. Meta and other social media getting their lunch eaten and trying to kneecap a competitor/acquire it on the cheap
2. Bipartisan sinophobic sentiment
3. Old people mad about young people and things they like
4. Politicians and traditional media alarmed by a platform where they have little influence over the agenda (see the current panic about TikTok teens not buying Israeli narrative)
Just out of curiosity, I fired up TikTok and first 10 videos I get are:
1. An MST3K clip about concrete
2. A severed squirrel tail found on the ground of a hawk enclosure with comedy voiceover, which then pans to the hawk looking very nonchalant
3. Angry (right-wing coded) rant about how Congress unanimously voted to ban TikTok (worth noting it wasn't actually unanimous) but can't agree on minimum wage, prescription drug prices, US-Mexico border, Congress being welfare queens, etc
4. Guy with health tips for joints popping, exercise, flexibility, etc
5. A colorblind kitten, with the punchline of except for the Green (meaning cash - no, I don't get the joke either)
6. Recording of a guy pretending to be asleep with peanut butter toast in his hand and his dog's reaction
7. Skit by a guy in a US military uniform on the Red Sea situation with Houthis launching attacks on ships (US POV)
8. A cockatiel singing annoyingly loud at 7 AM
9. Some skit titled "When your Dad finds out you pushed your Mom"
10. Video of a crosseyed younger brother drinking pedialyte straight from the container and told to use both of his eyes
On the whole it's less problematic than my Youtube feed or Twitter since Elon Musk took control. I won't be heartbroken if TikTok is forced divest and if Congress wants to set universal privacy standards they have my support, but don't insult my intelligence by pretending this hatchet job is somehow to my benefit.
posted by ndr at 7:54 PM on March 13 [11 favorites]
Most of the recorded meetings focus on TikTok’s response to these concerns. The company is currently attempting to redirect its pipes so that certain, “protected” data can no longer flow out of the United States and into China, an effort known internally as Project Texas. In the recordings, the vast majority of situations where China-based staff accessed US user data were in service of Project Texas's aim to halt this data access.In other words, in the course of making a sincere effort to segregate US data, they were working with colleagues in China to figure out what they had to firewall. SWE types are probably overrepresented here and I'm sure many would nod along reading it - TikTok is basically a port of Douyin and worrying about segregating data based on nationality was never an original design consideration, of course you'd have these issues. And if you're trying to confirm somebody has access they shouldn't, it's natural to ping them and have them try to access it. It's very bad faith that this is portrayed as evidence of malfeasance instead of attempts to fix an emergent issue.
Further up this thread somebody noted that Douyin shows kids in China educational content and implied their failure to do so elsewhere was evidence of malintent, to which I would ask: so do you want TikTok to put their finger on the scale and determine what people are watching or not? I remember when the original line of allegations was that it censored content unfriendly to China - it sure seems like the complaints boil down to "TikTok isn't showing what I think it should" instead of some principle that can actually be implemented.
If you're concerned about China getting their hands on Americans' data, might I also direct your attention to the NSA just buying up American data? If China really wanted it, they'd just do the same. Like many popular things, the anti-TikTok hysteria is a perfect confluence of many motivations:
1. Meta and other social media getting their lunch eaten and trying to kneecap a competitor/acquire it on the cheap
2. Bipartisan sinophobic sentiment
3. Old people mad about young people and things they like
4. Politicians and traditional media alarmed by a platform where they have little influence over the agenda (see the current panic about TikTok teens not buying Israeli narrative)
Just out of curiosity, I fired up TikTok and first 10 videos I get are:
1. An MST3K clip about concrete
2. A severed squirrel tail found on the ground of a hawk enclosure with comedy voiceover, which then pans to the hawk looking very nonchalant
3. Angry (right-wing coded) rant about how Congress unanimously voted to ban TikTok (worth noting it wasn't actually unanimous) but can't agree on minimum wage, prescription drug prices, US-Mexico border, Congress being welfare queens, etc
4. Guy with health tips for joints popping, exercise, flexibility, etc
5. A colorblind kitten, with the punchline of except for the Green (meaning cash - no, I don't get the joke either)
6. Recording of a guy pretending to be asleep with peanut butter toast in his hand and his dog's reaction
7. Skit by a guy in a US military uniform on the Red Sea situation with Houthis launching attacks on ships (US POV)
8. A cockatiel singing annoyingly loud at 7 AM
9. Some skit titled "When your Dad finds out you pushed your Mom"
10. Video of a crosseyed younger brother drinking pedialyte straight from the container and told to use both of his eyes
On the whole it's less problematic than my Youtube feed or Twitter since Elon Musk took control. I won't be heartbroken if TikTok is forced divest and if Congress wants to set universal privacy standards they have my support, but don't insult my intelligence by pretending this hatchet job is somehow to my benefit.
posted by ndr at 7:54 PM on March 13 [11 favorites]
I am on team not concerned about CCP knowing my viewing habits. The CCP is an ideological and totalitarian organization. We had a brief insight into Soviet intelligence work after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The documents I read showed that the Soviets had a lot of information about the West. But the Soviets understood that information through the lens of their doctrine. So their conclusions were not accurate. That didn't stop the Politburo from wreaking damage all over the place, yet the Politburo didn't last. I expect that Chinese intelligence has a lot facts about me, but I also expect them to be weird about those facts.
posted by SnowRottie at 9:17 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]
posted by SnowRottie at 9:17 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]
Is anyone else reminded of that time when Six Apart bought live journal and then (a few years later) moved their servers to Russia? And we all rushed to migrate our data?
posted by bunderful at 11:15 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]
posted by bunderful at 11:15 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]
MetaFilter has always been ridiculously Extremely Online and not tethered to real life, but it’s possibly never been more Extremely Online as when multiple people declared that changing the corporate owner of a social media platform from one company (that 98% of its users could not name) to another company was going to hand the 2024 Presidential election to Donald Trump.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 11:17 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 11:17 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]
WSJ has more details about how the sausage got made
As a lot of people suspected it turns out the latest bill was driven by the Biden administration being horrified by how pro-Palestinian Tiktok users have become since October and collaborating with an existing coalition of China hawks to create a ban bill that would survive a first amendment challenge.
Biden's campaign joining Tiktok recently appears to have been a way to keep the Tiktok executives thinking everything was normal until it was too late.
posted by zymil at 1:51 AM on March 14 [9 favorites]
As a lot of people suspected it turns out the latest bill was driven by the Biden administration being horrified by how pro-Palestinian Tiktok users have become since October and collaborating with an existing coalition of China hawks to create a ban bill that would survive a first amendment challenge.
Biden's campaign joining Tiktok recently appears to have been a way to keep the Tiktok executives thinking everything was normal until it was too late.
posted by zymil at 1:51 AM on March 14 [9 favorites]
I expect that Chinese intelligence has a lot facts about me, but I also expect them to be weird about those facts.
You're not wrong - XJP's recent moves to bring back offshore elements, shall we say, and centralise power have resulted in some genuinely eyeblinking analyses in the last couple of years... Until you realise it's meant to read by central committee. I wish I'd save them though.
Hey.... Maybe Palestinian activism needs to move even more to Facebook... Oh wait...
posted by cendawanita at 4:16 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
You're not wrong - XJP's recent moves to bring back offshore elements, shall we say, and centralise power have resulted in some genuinely eyeblinking analyses in the last couple of years... Until you realise it's meant to read by central committee. I wish I'd save them though.
Hey.... Maybe Palestinian activism needs to move even more to Facebook... Oh wait...
posted by cendawanita at 4:16 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
Sincere question about folks getting alt-right stuff in the feeds: would it be more likely if the app's algo figured out you were more politically engaged? Or more interested in politics stuff?
As I said before, I have never been directly served stuff like that when I have used TikTok, except for occasional thumbails of videos when I have tried to search for stuff (ugh, their search function is a nightmare).
posted by Kitteh at 5:08 AM on March 14
As I said before, I have never been directly served stuff like that when I have used TikTok, except for occasional thumbails of videos when I have tried to search for stuff (ugh, their search function is a nightmare).
posted by Kitteh at 5:08 AM on March 14
Adding that I asked Shepherd if he ever got alt-right stuff when he's used social media and he replied, "I am a middle-aged white guy. It assumes I want to see that shit because of that."
posted by Kitteh at 5:14 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 5:14 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
I'm a huge fan of TikTok, mostly for one reason: It's gets the algorithm mostly right, meaning it shows me things I want to see, makes it relatively easy to add new stuff. There are various subtoks (booktok, cookingtok etc) that enable you to really niche down into a subject and all of this adds up to a major point: When I open the App, I'm gonna see something I finding interesting or amusing. That doesn't happen with Facebook or Instagram.
It's not perfect though. I'm still seeing people talking about Dune2, even though I clicking "not interested" on everything that comes across my For You Page, but it has lessened, which I am grateful for.
However, with the recent problems in England, I posted my thoughts on TikTok about how Americans could get around this proposed ban by our idiotic politicians: take over England. The Royal family is in shambles and back in the day, France would be considering a takeover, so why shouldn't angry Americans do the same?!
Which is kinda nutty, I admit, considering that America only accounts for about 10% of TikTok users. Most of the userbase probably wouldn't mind having an America free zone.
There is talk about migrating to something called Clapper, but the interesting idea is simply to build a community TikTok, which seems to be picking up some steam. Not sure how far it'll go, but I love the idea, especially as its mixed with the idea of boycotting major corporations. We the people indeed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:34 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
It's not perfect though. I'm still seeing people talking about Dune2, even though I clicking "not interested" on everything that comes across my For You Page, but it has lessened, which I am grateful for.
However, with the recent problems in England, I posted my thoughts on TikTok about how Americans could get around this proposed ban by our idiotic politicians: take over England. The Royal family is in shambles and back in the day, France would be considering a takeover, so why shouldn't angry Americans do the same?!
Which is kinda nutty, I admit, considering that America only accounts for about 10% of TikTok users. Most of the userbase probably wouldn't mind having an America free zone.
There is talk about migrating to something called Clapper, but the interesting idea is simply to build a community TikTok, which seems to be picking up some steam. Not sure how far it'll go, but I love the idea, especially as its mixed with the idea of boycotting major corporations. We the people indeed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:34 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
Glad to see us establishing our own Great Firewall.
It's a start. Social media networks are largely unregulated and that has had deadly consequences. Zuckerberg should be in a prison cell for what he has done to democracies around the world, including the United States. It is not hyperbole to remind everyone that people died because of Facebook/Meta/whatever they rename themselves to a few years from now. These things take time.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:43 AM on March 14 [7 favorites]
It's a start. Social media networks are largely unregulated and that has had deadly consequences. Zuckerberg should be in a prison cell for what he has done to democracies around the world, including the United States. It is not hyperbole to remind everyone that people died because of Facebook/Meta/whatever they rename themselves to a few years from now. These things take time.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:43 AM on March 14 [7 favorites]
I mean, come on. The people running these companies are making money off of death.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:55 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:55 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
This is one of those things where there's not really a good answer. On the one hand, I don't like the idea of government dictating where people speak or hear speech. On the other, I have no problem with the restrictions on foreign ownership of US TV and radio stations.
At times, I have been able to resolve the cognitive dissonance by remembering that the airwaves are a limited public resource, while (in general) the Internet is not the same. Of course, in reality, most people are once again using the public airwaves to make their Internet go. I am posting this comment from my phone, which most assuredly does not have a USB-to-Ethernet dongle attached. Still, it just feels different, in much the same way as I'd be annoyed if the government tried to tell cable companies they can't carry HBO because they show boobs sometimes.
Then, I read about TilTok sending a push notification that completely mischaracterized the proposed law and Congress getting flooded with calls as a result and thought "way to go, guys, you just proved the fucking point" and now I can't work up the slightest outrage. I'd still rather see regulations on data collection, brokering, and other issues rather than a law that singles out one company for divestiture, but I know that's never going to happen.
I would be amused if ByteDance did decide to sell TikTok as a result of all this and ended up selling it to a company based in Canada or France or Germany or whatever. Maybe Spotify can buy it. That would be fucking hilarious, because I strongly suspect that a large part of this is as much or more about bringing TikTok under the control of a US company than it is about getting it out of a Chinese company's control or any serious concern about what the CCP might do with the collected data.
posted by wierdo at 6:15 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]
At times, I have been able to resolve the cognitive dissonance by remembering that the airwaves are a limited public resource, while (in general) the Internet is not the same. Of course, in reality, most people are once again using the public airwaves to make their Internet go. I am posting this comment from my phone, which most assuredly does not have a USB-to-Ethernet dongle attached. Still, it just feels different, in much the same way as I'd be annoyed if the government tried to tell cable companies they can't carry HBO because they show boobs sometimes.
Then, I read about TilTok sending a push notification that completely mischaracterized the proposed law and Congress getting flooded with calls as a result and thought "way to go, guys, you just proved the fucking point" and now I can't work up the slightest outrage. I'd still rather see regulations on data collection, brokering, and other issues rather than a law that singles out one company for divestiture, but I know that's never going to happen.
I would be amused if ByteDance did decide to sell TikTok as a result of all this and ended up selling it to a company based in Canada or France or Germany or whatever. Maybe Spotify can buy it. That would be fucking hilarious, because I strongly suspect that a large part of this is as much or more about bringing TikTok under the control of a US company than it is about getting it out of a Chinese company's control or any serious concern about what the CCP might do with the collected data.
posted by wierdo at 6:15 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]
As a lot of people suspected it turns out the latest bill was driven by the Biden administration being horrified by how pro-Palestinian Tiktok users have become since October and collaborating with an existing coalition of China hawks to create a ban bill that would survive a first amendment challenge.
They really do love genocide more than any other thing.
posted by Artw at 6:42 AM on March 14 [6 favorites]
They really do love genocide more than any other thing.
posted by Artw at 6:42 AM on March 14 [6 favorites]
Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Says He’s Getting Together Investor Group To Buy TikTok
Congratulations to assorted Trump associated fat right VC types, I guess.
posted by Artw at 6:46 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
Congratulations to assorted Trump associated fat right VC types, I guess.
posted by Artw at 6:46 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
It's okay folks, you can calm down: Kamala Harris won't prosecute Mnuchin this time, either.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 6:53 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 6:53 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]
It's a start. Social media networks are largely unregulated and that has had deadly consequences.
It isn't a start, though. There is no intention of doing anything about the evils of social media. It is about removing one particular platform because its young audience is unacceptably anti-genocide, and because it is owned by scary foreigners instead of reliable American VCs.
On the other, I have no problem with the restrictions on foreign ownership of US TV and radio stations.
This is an attitude I don't understand. Do people really think US media companies are benevolent or honest in a way others aren't? It just seems like arbitrary xenophobia.
MetaFilter has always been ridiculously Extremely Online and not tethered to real life, but it’s possibly never been more Extremely Online as when multiple people declared that changing the corporate owner of a social media platform from one company (that 98% of its users could not name) to another company was going to hand the 2024 Presidential election to Donald Trump.
Changing ownership is the demans. The threat for noncompliance is to ban Tiktok entirely. It certainly would be one way to get the youth vote out.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:08 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]
It isn't a start, though. There is no intention of doing anything about the evils of social media. It is about removing one particular platform because its young audience is unacceptably anti-genocide, and because it is owned by scary foreigners instead of reliable American VCs.
On the other, I have no problem with the restrictions on foreign ownership of US TV and radio stations.
This is an attitude I don't understand. Do people really think US media companies are benevolent or honest in a way others aren't? It just seems like arbitrary xenophobia.
MetaFilter has always been ridiculously Extremely Online and not tethered to real life, but it’s possibly never been more Extremely Online as when multiple people declared that changing the corporate owner of a social media platform from one company (that 98% of its users could not name) to another company was going to hand the 2024 Presidential election to Donald Trump.
Changing ownership is the demans. The threat for noncompliance is to ban Tiktok entirely. It certainly would be one way to get the youth vote out.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:08 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]
It is about removing one particular platform because its young audience is unacceptably anti-genocide
This is getting silly. The largest demographic of TikTok users in the United States are of an age that can't even vote.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:30 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
This is getting silly. The largest demographic of TikTok users in the United States are of an age that can't even vote.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:30 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
The TikTok ban is all about preserving US power:
Just as the prospect of antitrust action against the titans of Silicon Valley started gaining traction in Washington, DC, the hysteria around China emerged as a key issue — and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. After finally coming in for some scrutiny, the tech industry had to find a bigger threat if it was going to protect itself. China was the perfect target. Facebook paid for an astroturf campaign to set the groundwork for the turn against TikTok to protect its control over social media, and the industry more broadly saw that if Chinese tech companies could be presented as a geopolitical problem, it would mean their monopolistic practices could be positioned as a necessary evil to counter that competition.posted by audi alteram partem at 7:31 AM on March 14 [6 favorites]
This is an attitude I don't understand. Do people really think US media companies are benevolent or honest in a way others aren't? It just seems like arbitrary xenophobia.
Of course I didn't think that US media companies are benevolent. Sometimes they make an attempt at honesty, if not fairness, but it's pretty much corporatist tools all the way down so what honesty there is has more to do with branding than anything else.
That being said, I'm willing to tolerate a lot more bullshit from my own people than I am a foreign adversary. Not necessarily because that's my preference, but because US nationals in the US have the unquestionable right to spew a bunch of bullshit, with very limited exception, if they want to do that.
That said, I'd be over the fucking moon if we also brought back the previously existing limits on the number of media outlets any one person or organization could own.
Like, I don't like my country very much, especially of late, but I do think that within the bounds prescribed by the Constitution it has the right to be as open or as xenophobic as it wishes. There was a time in my life I would have been upset by the idea of forcing TikTok's divestiture, but as I said before, I really can't work up any outrage over this after TikTok went and amply demonstrated the problem with their misinformation as push notification.
Plus, I think a bunch of you are out to lunch when you guys say that the whole China-as-adversary thing is manufactured bullshit. I was skeptical of the narrative early on in Xi Jinping's tenure, but a lot of shit has happened since then, and not as a response to US actions. I may not like reality as it is, but I also must accept it for what it is lest I start acting like some MAGA asshat who thinks that up is down and repression is freedom.
Note that adversary does not mean enemy. It doesn't mean going to war. It means recognizing the areas in which we have become dependent on China (and other countries, for that matter) that could be exploited should tensions grow further and working to rectify the situation. I was once a true believer in the "sufficient trade and openness will force us all to be friends" theory, but it turned out to be wrong, or at least incomplete. There goes reality getting in the way again.
posted by wierdo at 7:55 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]
Of course I didn't think that US media companies are benevolent. Sometimes they make an attempt at honesty, if not fairness, but it's pretty much corporatist tools all the way down so what honesty there is has more to do with branding than anything else.
That being said, I'm willing to tolerate a lot more bullshit from my own people than I am a foreign adversary. Not necessarily because that's my preference, but because US nationals in the US have the unquestionable right to spew a bunch of bullshit, with very limited exception, if they want to do that.
That said, I'd be over the fucking moon if we also brought back the previously existing limits on the number of media outlets any one person or organization could own.
Like, I don't like my country very much, especially of late, but I do think that within the bounds prescribed by the Constitution it has the right to be as open or as xenophobic as it wishes. There was a time in my life I would have been upset by the idea of forcing TikTok's divestiture, but as I said before, I really can't work up any outrage over this after TikTok went and amply demonstrated the problem with their misinformation as push notification.
Plus, I think a bunch of you are out to lunch when you guys say that the whole China-as-adversary thing is manufactured bullshit. I was skeptical of the narrative early on in Xi Jinping's tenure, but a lot of shit has happened since then, and not as a response to US actions. I may not like reality as it is, but I also must accept it for what it is lest I start acting like some MAGA asshat who thinks that up is down and repression is freedom.
Note that adversary does not mean enemy. It doesn't mean going to war. It means recognizing the areas in which we have become dependent on China (and other countries, for that matter) that could be exploited should tensions grow further and working to rectify the situation. I was once a true believer in the "sufficient trade and openness will force us all to be friends" theory, but it turned out to be wrong, or at least incomplete. There goes reality getting in the way again.
posted by wierdo at 7:55 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]
This is getting silly. The largest demographic of TikTok users in the United States are of an age that can't even vote.
That's only an issue if you care exclusively about getting elected. If you think the presence of a heavily armed American proxy in the Middle East is a good thing, changing opinions of younger people is very real problem. For a lot of American politicians, supporting genocide isn't about November. It is about keeping the US militarily and culturally dominant.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:55 AM on March 14 [7 favorites]
That's only an issue if you care exclusively about getting elected. If you think the presence of a heavily armed American proxy in the Middle East is a good thing, changing opinions of younger people is very real problem. For a lot of American politicians, supporting genocide isn't about November. It is about keeping the US militarily and culturally dominant.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:55 AM on March 14 [7 favorites]
I find it very interesting that a platform that was used by A LOT of marginalized people to come together and share information about how to mobilize and protect each other was bought out by a millionaire from a deeply racist country and rapidly became a huge source of disinformation and exclusion of those same marginalized people. And now, a social media platform is giving thousands and thousands of marginalized people the opportunity to make money, communicate bold ideas, and mobilize to promote unionization and boycotts against large companies, now, that platform is bad because the company that owns it is "unAmerican."
Yeah. I'm not buying it. I get the Chinese are one of the bad guys in the world, but I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that we aren't one of the bad guys as well. And the more we pretend we are not, the more it feels like we are.
Also, if you're getting right wing crap on TT, then you're doing something I'm not. I get an endless stream of queer, BIPOC, and Labor influencers telling me funny and wonderful stories about their lives and educating me about things I should have learned in school. And cat videos. And dance videos. And young women breaking down the patriarchy while putting on makeup.
posted by teleri025 at 8:29 AM on March 14 [9 favorites]
Yeah. I'm not buying it. I get the Chinese are one of the bad guys in the world, but I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that we aren't one of the bad guys as well. And the more we pretend we are not, the more it feels like we are.
Also, if you're getting right wing crap on TT, then you're doing something I'm not. I get an endless stream of queer, BIPOC, and Labor influencers telling me funny and wonderful stories about their lives and educating me about things I should have learned in school. And cat videos. And dance videos. And young women breaking down the patriarchy while putting on makeup.
posted by teleri025 at 8:29 AM on March 14 [9 favorites]
The United States foreign policy establishment and military industrial complex have a long and well established history of manufacturing bullshit. As a betting matter, you don't really have to examine their individual claims too closely to safely mark them as BS. Keep in mind, a bullshit claim can happen to be true. It's just a claim made for ulterior motives and not the truth of the matter at hand. Basically, it's quite rich for a group of people who undermine democracy and manipulate media discourse in their own country and abroad to complain about foreigners doing the same thing.
Countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel invest in the U.S. and have the same capacity as China to use those investments to undermine US democratic discourse, media, my personal interests, or whatever we might think our national interests are. This strongly suggests the stated reasons for banning TikTok and viewing China as an adversary are bullshit. Why welcome Netanyahu and MBS, but shun Xi?
This is frustrating precisely because the US foreign policy establishment are my own people, in some sense. They purport to do things in my name but I have no influence over any of it and generally disagree with their aims. In fact, I think their interests are generally adversarial to mine as a US worker. It'd be nice if I could just let my adversaries fight it out somewhere else and be done with it. But that's not so easy to do when the US group is set up in my backyard and funded with my money. I don't even use TikTok I just don't like being condescended to.
posted by Hume at 8:41 AM on March 14 [8 favorites]
Countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel invest in the U.S. and have the same capacity as China to use those investments to undermine US democratic discourse, media, my personal interests, or whatever we might think our national interests are. This strongly suggests the stated reasons for banning TikTok and viewing China as an adversary are bullshit. Why welcome Netanyahu and MBS, but shun Xi?
This is frustrating precisely because the US foreign policy establishment are my own people, in some sense. They purport to do things in my name but I have no influence over any of it and generally disagree with their aims. In fact, I think their interests are generally adversarial to mine as a US worker. It'd be nice if I could just let my adversaries fight it out somewhere else and be done with it. But that's not so easy to do when the US group is set up in my backyard and funded with my money. I don't even use TikTok I just don't like being condescended to.
posted by Hume at 8:41 AM on March 14 [8 favorites]
The EU is stepping up its game around real tech legislation as well, which is probably something a lot of people would like to distract from so nobody gets the idea of copying them.
posted by Artw at 8:58 AM on March 14
posted by Artw at 8:58 AM on March 14
I think a bunch of you are out to lunch when you guys say that the whole China-as-adversary thing is manufactured bullshit. I was skeptical of the narrative early on in Xi Jinping's tenure, but a lot of shit has happened since then, and not as a response to US actions. I may not like reality as it is, but I also must accept it for what it is lest I start acting like some MAGA asshat who thinks that up is down and repression is freedom.
So much this. The US is a neo-imperialist power that mostly skips Roman-style conquest/British colonialism in favor of bulk wealth extraction by forcing “open” markets. Once the corporate hooks and framework for exploitation of the working class is in place, it then proceeds to harvest the wealth of those territories via shareholder capitalism and maintaining a deep pool of investment banking specialists that, on average, massively outplay every other nation’s. Attempts to buck any of this outright or subvert it by, say, switching to trading petroleum in Euros (Saddam) and you’re suddenly staring down the barrel of a military budget larger than the next ten combined. Cuban isolation is the best you can hope for and heaven help you if you don’t have a friendly competing superpower willing to help (Haiti).
This isn’t even getting into our sponsorship of genocidal far-right lunatics currently occupying the Israeli government, our naked systemic discrimination against black people or our maintaining a de facto domestic slave class with undocumented workers and immigrants.
Smedley Butler fucking nailed it nearly a century ago in War Is A Racket. We’ve only gotten better at spinning it.
China, amazingly, somehow manages to be ever so slightly worse at human rights: Uyghurs, Tibet, Tianemen, social score, mentioning “Winnie the Pooh,” the aftermath of the Hong Kong protests and that’s just off the top of my head. They’re far from finished scaling up yet, but even what we’ve seen sets a baseline expectation which - once their three-times greater population is brought up to North American living standards and the power that taxbase enables - will likely export oppression on a scale the US simply cannot match. This has nothing to do with yellow scare - I could not possibly care less about ethnicity here - and everything to do with what the Overton-equivalent is for people in power within each government and extrapolating the likely outcome of that administrative culture’s continued growth in geopolitical power.
Giving that administration the ability to influence our Overton window by, say, increasing alt-right meme frequency 3% three months prior to the election is stark raving madness. We are not the good guys; Putin and the CCP aside we are very probably the worst guys. I have no choice but to be complicit in this shit by participating in the economy, paying taxes, and voting for candidates that - even if they’re technically from the DSA and only caucus with the DNC - are still far to the right of anything I am actually comfortable supporting. And I still vote Democrat every fucking time, just like every other US Mefite, because the alternative is somehow even worse. The same is true with CCP control of a major US social media company. My conscience is forever stained and I’m not looking to make it worse.
posted by Ryvar at 9:07 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]
So much this. The US is a neo-imperialist power that mostly skips Roman-style conquest/British colonialism in favor of bulk wealth extraction by forcing “open” markets. Once the corporate hooks and framework for exploitation of the working class is in place, it then proceeds to harvest the wealth of those territories via shareholder capitalism and maintaining a deep pool of investment banking specialists that, on average, massively outplay every other nation’s. Attempts to buck any of this outright or subvert it by, say, switching to trading petroleum in Euros (Saddam) and you’re suddenly staring down the barrel of a military budget larger than the next ten combined. Cuban isolation is the best you can hope for and heaven help you if you don’t have a friendly competing superpower willing to help (Haiti).
This isn’t even getting into our sponsorship of genocidal far-right lunatics currently occupying the Israeli government, our naked systemic discrimination against black people or our maintaining a de facto domestic slave class with undocumented workers and immigrants.
Smedley Butler fucking nailed it nearly a century ago in War Is A Racket. We’ve only gotten better at spinning it.
China, amazingly, somehow manages to be ever so slightly worse at human rights: Uyghurs, Tibet, Tianemen, social score, mentioning “Winnie the Pooh,” the aftermath of the Hong Kong protests and that’s just off the top of my head. They’re far from finished scaling up yet, but even what we’ve seen sets a baseline expectation which - once their three-times greater population is brought up to North American living standards and the power that taxbase enables - will likely export oppression on a scale the US simply cannot match. This has nothing to do with yellow scare - I could not possibly care less about ethnicity here - and everything to do with what the Overton-equivalent is for people in power within each government and extrapolating the likely outcome of that administrative culture’s continued growth in geopolitical power.
Giving that administration the ability to influence our Overton window by, say, increasing alt-right meme frequency 3% three months prior to the election is stark raving madness. We are not the good guys; Putin and the CCP aside we are very probably the worst guys. I have no choice but to be complicit in this shit by participating in the economy, paying taxes, and voting for candidates that - even if they’re technically from the DSA and only caucus with the DNC - are still far to the right of anything I am actually comfortable supporting. And I still vote Democrat every fucking time, just like every other US Mefite, because the alternative is somehow even worse. The same is true with CCP control of a major US social media company. My conscience is forever stained and I’m not looking to make it worse.
posted by Ryvar at 9:07 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]
Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Says He’s Getting Together Investor Group To Buy TikTok
That’s also likely Saudi money.
posted by Artw at 9:33 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]
That’s also likely Saudi money.
posted by Artw at 9:33 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]
I think a bunch of you are out to lunch when you guys say that the whole China-as-adversary thing is manufactured bullshit.
China may well be a threat to US hegemony. I just don't care about US hegemony.
China definitely has a host of human rights issues, but US antagonism won't help the victims of Chinese state and corporate power, anymore than Chinese antagonism will help us in the US.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:48 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
China may well be a threat to US hegemony. I just don't care about US hegemony.
China definitely has a host of human rights issues, but US antagonism won't help the victims of Chinese state and corporate power, anymore than Chinese antagonism will help us in the US.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:48 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]
Great. However, the easiest way for China to undercut US hegemony is to encourage us to be our worst selves. Permitting them a major channel with which to do so is both collective suicide and will make the world an objectively worse place if your metric is aggregate suffering, oppression, and compulsion. Neither you nor I want to see what a second Trump term looks like, and you’d be delusional to think the CCP is going to let an easy deathblow to US hegemony like that go unrealized.
posted by Ryvar at 9:56 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]
posted by Ryvar at 9:56 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]
if you linger to be outraged the algorithm may still take that as an indication to feed you more
When I joined it kept showing me incredibly conservative religious accounts and I lingered too long on one to try and work out how to give it the thumbs down and then it got even worse.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 9:56 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]
When I joined it kept showing me incredibly conservative religious accounts and I lingered too long on one to try and work out how to give it the thumbs down and then it got even worse.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 9:56 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]
Great. However, the easiest way for China to undercut US hegemony is to encourage us to be our worst selves.
US social media companies have been more than willing to promote the far right for the sake of profit, but the opposition is entirely to foreign owned social media. Frankly this seems like post facto reasoning to support an initial decision based on a xenophobic impulse. If there is evidence of some uniquely dangerous pro-Trump psyop on Tiktok, I haven't seen it.
Also, it seems odd that suggestions the app is being pulled for domestic political reasons gets the response that most users can't or don't vote, but the argument for banning the app is that it will make them vote for Trump.
I think the notion that China wants a destabilized US and another Trump term does not obviously follow from their desire to reduce global US influence, but that is a much more difficult question to analyze.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:07 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
US social media companies have been more than willing to promote the far right for the sake of profit, but the opposition is entirely to foreign owned social media. Frankly this seems like post facto reasoning to support an initial decision based on a xenophobic impulse. If there is evidence of some uniquely dangerous pro-Trump psyop on Tiktok, I haven't seen it.
Also, it seems odd that suggestions the app is being pulled for domestic political reasons gets the response that most users can't or don't vote, but the argument for banning the app is that it will make them vote for Trump.
I think the notion that China wants a destabilized US and another Trump term does not obviously follow from their desire to reduce global US influence, but that is a much more difficult question to analyze.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:07 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
but the opposition is entirely to foreign owned social media
You’re describing people other than the person you’re replying to. Every domestic social media company I’m aware of should ideally be nationalized and their C-suite imprisoned. Not just Meta and Xitter, not just Zuck and Xitler.
Optimizing for engagement alone should be a crime and I’m extraordinarily fortunate I haven’t been asked to do that professionally yet.
Also, it seems odd that suggestions the app is being pulled for domestic political reasons gets the response that most users can't or don't vote, but the argument for banning the app is that it will make them vote for Trump.
Again, describing someone other than the person you’re replying to. I think this is a bad move for the DNC. I assume their strategists have crunched the numbers and arrived at a range of outcomes where this is more likely to be a net win. I think they’re probably wrong, but I’m not at all certain and in any case doubt they’re wrong enough that it will palpably change the outcome.
And the problem with foreign psyops is hardly limited to electoral interference. Every aspect of the zeitgeist is up for grabs.
posted by Ryvar at 10:23 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]
You’re describing people other than the person you’re replying to. Every domestic social media company I’m aware of should ideally be nationalized and their C-suite imprisoned. Not just Meta and Xitter, not just Zuck and Xitler.
Optimizing for engagement alone should be a crime and I’m extraordinarily fortunate I haven’t been asked to do that professionally yet.
Also, it seems odd that suggestions the app is being pulled for domestic political reasons gets the response that most users can't or don't vote, but the argument for banning the app is that it will make them vote for Trump.
Again, describing someone other than the person you’re replying to. I think this is a bad move for the DNC. I assume their strategists have crunched the numbers and arrived at a range of outcomes where this is more likely to be a net win. I think they’re probably wrong, but I’m not at all certain and in any case doubt they’re wrong enough that it will palpably change the outcome.
And the problem with foreign psyops is hardly limited to electoral interference. Every aspect of the zeitgeist is up for grabs.
posted by Ryvar at 10:23 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]
If this were part of a larger move to regulate social media my response would be entirely different. But it isn't.
In reality the only platform being attacked is the foreign owned one.
I am not worried about China having some insidious influence on the "zeitgeist". I'd certainly prefer that to whatever Mnuchin's going to do.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:27 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]
In reality the only platform being attacked is the foreign owned one.
I am not worried about China having some insidious influence on the "zeitgeist". I'd certainly prefer that to whatever Mnuchin's going to do.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:27 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]
I hardly ever see alt-right content on my FYP. Right now it's largely autism/ADHD, Palestine, disability rights, activist discourse on the Left (sometimes exhausting but not often harmful), the occasional meme, anime/cosplay, school, Ultimate World Cruise, and stuff from my favorite video games.
Very similar to mine, with the addition of Lego content.
The most important thing to note here, is the US Government officials are mostly interested in getting TikTok sold to a sympathetic entity who will help squash communication they dislike. A fair amount of the lefty content in my TikTok feed is people pointing out how much US corporations control in our country/government, as well as endorsing activism to try to reverse the corporate dystopia we are rapidly sliding into becoming.
posted by Fleebnork at 10:38 AM on March 14 [7 favorites]
Very similar to mine, with the addition of Lego content.
The most important thing to note here, is the US Government officials are mostly interested in getting TikTok sold to a sympathetic entity who will help squash communication they dislike. A fair amount of the lefty content in my TikTok feed is people pointing out how much US corporations control in our country/government, as well as endorsing activism to try to reverse the corporate dystopia we are rapidly sliding into becoming.
posted by Fleebnork at 10:38 AM on March 14 [7 favorites]
This is getting silly. The largest demographic of TikTok users in the United States are of an age that can't even vote.
Yes, but memory lingers. I am sure some Gen X voters passed on supporting Al Gore in 2000 due to Tipper being the spearhead for the Parents Music Resource Center.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:40 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]
Yes, but memory lingers. I am sure some Gen X voters passed on supporting Al Gore in 2000 due to Tipper being the spearhead for the Parents Music Resource Center.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:40 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]
Also…apologies to Ursula Hitler above. I was attempting a joke about the contrast between the humorous username vs the awful right wing targeting on social media. This did not land, and I am sorry.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:42 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:42 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
I am sure some Gen X voters passed on supporting Al Gore in 2000 due to Tipper being the spearhead for the Parents Music Resource Center.
It was a factor for me.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 11:47 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]
It was a factor for me.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 11:47 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]
Also, it seems odd that suggestions the app is being pulled for domestic political reasons gets the response that most users can't or don't vote, but the argument for banning the app is that it will make them vote for Trump.
You may be shocked to learn that people who agree on a subject (or at least don't disagree) often come to their view in a different way, consider different aspects more or less important, or focus on different things. It is perfectly possible for one person to believe that any political fallout from this will be unimportant because the TikTok demo skews too young to vote while a different person believes that TikTok is capable of influencing elections.
Personally, I think that Putin-style chaos monkey bullshit is equally as problematic, if not more so, than attempts to influence politics directly. We've seen and continue to see what the chaos monkeys have wrought. For whatever reason, Russia has been more successful (my suspicion is that it has to do with the alignment of a certain particularly loud political faction with certain Russian interests, but that's just suspicion) than China has been. Granted, China has not been trying as hard as of yet, but there have been attempts.
I don't really get why folks are so hot to blame the US for the situation. The apparatus of government was fine with "merely" bombing brown people who could be called terrorists and otherwise ignore China saying Taiwan is actually part of China and Russia's saying the Donbas is actually part of Russia, but both China and Russia decided to start pushing the envelope and taking potshots. You can't invade other countries, ratchet up tensions, attempt to interfere in politics, and then put on the shocked Pikachu face when the giant starts vaguely considering the possibility of getting up off the couch. It ain't right when we do it and it ain't right when they do it.
I don't actually mind information gathering for the most part, secrets lead to misunderstandings that cause escalation, after all. I do very much mind when things go beyond that into intervention. Giving a country that has recently passed laws making it impossible to say that the information gathering won't turn into influence campaigns at the behest of the government seems..unwise.
Yes, the US has FISA warrants and gag orders, so the US government can grab people's information. What they can't do is tell the social media companies (within the law, anyway) to do this or that to weaponize the platform against another government. If you don't want people to worry about these things, maybe don't pass dumbshit laws that allow you to compel such fuckery even against the wishes of the people running the thing.
The point being that the US' current adversaries brought the situation on themselves. This isn't "oh no, there's a leftist, let's send in the CIA to overthrow a government and destabilize a country!" situation. We've done plenty of that shit, but this isn't one of those times. The reflexive mental model of US/Western instigation that has served us so well for so long does not apply here.
All that said, does that make the law in question a good response? Maybe, maybe not; as I said before I don't really give a shit unless it becomes a pattern. I am pretty comfortable saying that it's not just xenophobia or that the primary purpose is to make Steve Mnuchin some money. There is legitimate smoke, though I am absolutely certain that people are already jockeying to make a mint off of the divestiture, should it come to pass.
posted by wierdo at 12:05 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]
You may be shocked to learn that people who agree on a subject (or at least don't disagree) often come to their view in a different way, consider different aspects more or less important, or focus on different things. It is perfectly possible for one person to believe that any political fallout from this will be unimportant because the TikTok demo skews too young to vote while a different person believes that TikTok is capable of influencing elections.
Personally, I think that Putin-style chaos monkey bullshit is equally as problematic, if not more so, than attempts to influence politics directly. We've seen and continue to see what the chaos monkeys have wrought. For whatever reason, Russia has been more successful (my suspicion is that it has to do with the alignment of a certain particularly loud political faction with certain Russian interests, but that's just suspicion) than China has been. Granted, China has not been trying as hard as of yet, but there have been attempts.
I don't really get why folks are so hot to blame the US for the situation. The apparatus of government was fine with "merely" bombing brown people who could be called terrorists and otherwise ignore China saying Taiwan is actually part of China and Russia's saying the Donbas is actually part of Russia, but both China and Russia decided to start pushing the envelope and taking potshots. You can't invade other countries, ratchet up tensions, attempt to interfere in politics, and then put on the shocked Pikachu face when the giant starts vaguely considering the possibility of getting up off the couch. It ain't right when we do it and it ain't right when they do it.
I don't actually mind information gathering for the most part, secrets lead to misunderstandings that cause escalation, after all. I do very much mind when things go beyond that into intervention. Giving a country that has recently passed laws making it impossible to say that the information gathering won't turn into influence campaigns at the behest of the government seems..unwise.
Yes, the US has FISA warrants and gag orders, so the US government can grab people's information. What they can't do is tell the social media companies (within the law, anyway) to do this or that to weaponize the platform against another government. If you don't want people to worry about these things, maybe don't pass dumbshit laws that allow you to compel such fuckery even against the wishes of the people running the thing.
The point being that the US' current adversaries brought the situation on themselves. This isn't "oh no, there's a leftist, let's send in the CIA to overthrow a government and destabilize a country!" situation. We've done plenty of that shit, but this isn't one of those times. The reflexive mental model of US/Western instigation that has served us so well for so long does not apply here.
All that said, does that make the law in question a good response? Maybe, maybe not; as I said before I don't really give a shit unless it becomes a pattern. I am pretty comfortable saying that it's not just xenophobia or that the primary purpose is to make Steve Mnuchin some money. There is legitimate smoke, though I am absolutely certain that people are already jockeying to make a mint off of the divestiture, should it come to pass.
posted by wierdo at 12:05 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]
There is no way in hell The World's Greatest Deliberative Body™ would take up this clownshoes legislation. Therefore….
posted by ob1quixote at 12:11 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 12:11 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]
A fair amount of the lefty content in my TikTok feed is people pointing out how much US corporations control in our country/government, as well as endorsing activism to try to reverse the corporate dystopia we are rapidly sliding into becoming.
Even today that's still like three quarters of my Twitter feed. Our corporate overlords are much less concerned with lefty calls for activism than you can possibly imagine. They simply do not give a shit what you or I think. They survive on glad handing and backroom deals, not public approval. It helps that lefty activism has gone over like a wet fart since pretty much forever, so it's easy for them to see social media as a pressure release valve rather than a threat.
posted by wierdo at 12:26 PM on March 14 [3 favorites]
Even today that's still like three quarters of my Twitter feed. Our corporate overlords are much less concerned with lefty calls for activism than you can possibly imagine. They simply do not give a shit what you or I think. They survive on glad handing and backroom deals, not public approval. It helps that lefty activism has gone over like a wet fart since pretty much forever, so it's easy for them to see social media as a pressure release valve rather than a threat.
posted by wierdo at 12:26 PM on March 14 [3 favorites]
You may be shocked to learn that people who agree on a subject (or at least don't disagree) often come to their view in a different way, consider different aspects more or less important, or focus on different things.
Leaving aside the sarcasm, the fact the reasoning isn't just not the same, but is in fact contradictory does nothing to indicate that this is more yellow peril and moral panic than anything rooted in any concern I share.
I could say more, but since you say you don't give a shit there doesn't seem much point.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 12:36 PM on March 14 [3 favorites]
Leaving aside the sarcasm, the fact the reasoning isn't just not the same, but is in fact contradictory does nothing to indicate that this is more yellow peril and moral panic than anything rooted in any concern I share.
I could say more, but since you say you don't give a shit there doesn't seem much point.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 12:36 PM on March 14 [3 favorites]
this is more yellow peril
Please do not do this.
We need to be able to acknowledge that, after adjusting for scale of geopolitical power and influence, since it came into power the Chinese Communist Party has had a human rights track record that is marginally worse than the United States. It is mostly quantitative but there is nothing we have done that quite reaches the level of what has happened to the Uyghurs. And you need to let people state the truth openly without calling them racist.
Just like we need to be able to say the far-right administration currently in control of the Israeli government are now openly committing genocide without being called anti-Semites.
Seriously, we can agree to disagree about the TikToks or whatever but that is not fucking cool.
posted by Ryvar at 12:47 PM on March 14 [8 favorites]
Please do not do this.
We need to be able to acknowledge that, after adjusting for scale of geopolitical power and influence, since it came into power the Chinese Communist Party has had a human rights track record that is marginally worse than the United States. It is mostly quantitative but there is nothing we have done that quite reaches the level of what has happened to the Uyghurs. And you need to let people state the truth openly without calling them racist.
Just like we need to be able to say the far-right administration currently in control of the Israeli government are now openly committing genocide without being called anti-Semites.
Seriously, we can agree to disagree about the TikToks or whatever but that is not fucking cool.
posted by Ryvar at 12:47 PM on March 14 [8 favorites]
“The TikTok Ban Is an Act of Elite Desperation,” Adam Johnson, The Column, 14 March 2024
TikTok isn’t some revolutionary force—and NatSec hatred for it is long simmering—but the nonstop images of dead Palestinians is absolutely what sealed its fate.posted by ob1quixote at 12:48 PM on March 14 [9 favorites]
The Manwich Horror: The reasoning for the support of forcing TikTok's divestiture isn't what you're taking exception with, it's the electoral consequences. These are entirely different things, so it makes zero sense to complain that different people who support an action have different views on what possible side effects may result. You seem to be searching for a reason to chalk it up to sinophobia, but you're barking up the wrong tree with this line of reasoning.
Also, I'd like to thank everyone for helping me come around to mild support of the concept. Apparently I can give the tiniest smear of a shit after all. It would be a lot easier to give a shit if it was owned by Russia since they're the ones actively doing the shit I worry China will escalate into, as opposed to their recent dabbling in the field just to get an idea of what's involved.
posted by wierdo at 12:49 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]
Also, I'd like to thank everyone for helping me come around to mild support of the concept. Apparently I can give the tiniest smear of a shit after all. It would be a lot easier to give a shit if it was owned by Russia since they're the ones actively doing the shit I worry China will escalate into, as opposed to their recent dabbling in the field just to get an idea of what's involved.
posted by wierdo at 12:49 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]
Seriously, we can agree to disagree about the TikToks or whatever but that is not fucking cool.
Fear mongering over the uniquely evil and dangerous nature of China serves American business and political interests and is effective exactly because of long standing anti-Asian bigotry in the United States. There has been a concerted effort to generate fear and paranoia about China for years now, and it will undoubtedly continue. I will call it racist so long as it seems to be so.
That doesn't mean the Chinese government isn't amoral and authoritarian. It means it is the interest of powerful people to make us afraid of that particular evil, but not equally malevolent actors whose crimes work to American interests.
The Manwich Horror: The reasoning for the support of forcing TikTok's divestiture isn't what you're taking exception with, it's the electoral consequences.
It is actually both. This is a dumb idea electorally. It is also motivated by political interests that I find objectionable, and is being sold on the back of a moral panic about the new scary thing kids are into and old fashioned American xenophobia.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 1:05 PM on March 14 [13 favorites]
Fear mongering over the uniquely evil and dangerous nature of China serves American business and political interests and is effective exactly because of long standing anti-Asian bigotry in the United States. There has been a concerted effort to generate fear and paranoia about China for years now, and it will undoubtedly continue. I will call it racist so long as it seems to be so.
That doesn't mean the Chinese government isn't amoral and authoritarian. It means it is the interest of powerful people to make us afraid of that particular evil, but not equally malevolent actors whose crimes work to American interests.
The Manwich Horror: The reasoning for the support of forcing TikTok's divestiture isn't what you're taking exception with, it's the electoral consequences.
It is actually both. This is a dumb idea electorally. It is also motivated by political interests that I find objectionable, and is being sold on the back of a moral panic about the new scary thing kids are into and old fashioned American xenophobia.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 1:05 PM on March 14 [13 favorites]
S'allright, Abehammerb. I have a truly miserable cold (or allergies or some damn thing) and it's making me prickly as hell.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:23 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:23 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]
This is fucking stupid. Please, elected representatives, do not piss of an enormous chunk of liberal voters by being this out-of-touch.
Yes yes the majority of users are the younguns. Let me tell you as a GenXer, though, there still are a LOT A LOT A LOT of us over there at least lurking.
posted by desuetude at 5:21 PM on March 14 [7 favorites]
Yes yes the majority of users are the younguns. Let me tell you as a GenXer, though, there still are a LOT A LOT A LOT of us over there at least lurking.
posted by desuetude at 5:21 PM on March 14 [7 favorites]
Awkward time to see Reuters filing this: Exclusive: Trump launched CIA covert influence operation against China - Two years into office, President Donald Trump authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a clandestine campaign on Chinese social media aimed at turning public opinion in China against its government, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the highly classified operation.
Three former officials told Reuters that the CIA created a small team of operatives who used bogus internet identities to spread negative narratives about Xi Jinping’s government while leaking disparaging intelligence to overseas news outlets. The effort, which began in 2019, has not been previously reported.
The CIA team promoted allegations that members of the ruling Communist Party were hiding ill-gotten money overseas and slammed as corrupt and wasteful China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which provides financing for infrastructure projects in the developing world, the sources told Reuters.
Although the U.S. officials declined to provide specific details of these operations, they said the disparaging narratives were based in fact despite being secretly released by intelligence operatives under false cover. The efforts within China were intended to foment paranoia among top leaders there, forcing its government to expend resources chasing intrusions into Beijing’s tightly controlled internet, two former officials said. “We wanted them chasing ghosts,” one of these former officials said.
posted by cendawanita at 6:34 PM on March 14 [5 favorites]
Three former officials told Reuters that the CIA created a small team of operatives who used bogus internet identities to spread negative narratives about Xi Jinping’s government while leaking disparaging intelligence to overseas news outlets. The effort, which began in 2019, has not been previously reported.
The CIA team promoted allegations that members of the ruling Communist Party were hiding ill-gotten money overseas and slammed as corrupt and wasteful China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which provides financing for infrastructure projects in the developing world, the sources told Reuters.
Although the U.S. officials declined to provide specific details of these operations, they said the disparaging narratives were based in fact despite being secretly released by intelligence operatives under false cover. The efforts within China were intended to foment paranoia among top leaders there, forcing its government to expend resources chasing intrusions into Beijing’s tightly controlled internet, two former officials said. “We wanted them chasing ghosts,” one of these former officials said.
posted by cendawanita at 6:34 PM on March 14 [5 favorites]
"Given the escalating geopolitical tensions across the world, it is critical to study how cyberspace can be a highly contested environment for powerful state actors. Information warfare has become an integral part of adversarial state and non-state actors’ non-kinetic strategic approaches to influence foreign policy, undermine diplomatic relations, erode public confidence, and distort the truth....It is crucial to understand that deception, misinformation, and mal-information are not a new problem; they have existed for millennia. Nonetheless, the arrival of social media and the proliferation of multiple platforms have aggravated the matter, since social media platforms provide a permissive environment for the weaponisation and cross-pollination of distorted information. Among the most pernicious consequences of this phenomenon is the public’s deteriorating faith in mainstream news media and their government, causing people to seek alternative sources, even if these are unverified or derived from untrustworthy sources."
posted by clavdivs at 7:04 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 7:04 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]
banning TikTok is a stupid, performative, unconstitutional, authoritarian move that doesn’t do even the slightest bit to stop China from (1) getting data on Americans or (2) using propaganda to try to influence people (which are the two issues most frequently used to justify a ban).mike masnick in techdirt
Banning TikTok, but refusing to pass a useful privacy law or regulate the data broker industry is entirely decorative. The data broker industry routinely collects all manner of sensitive U.S. consumer location, demographic, and behavior data from a massive array of apps, telecom networks, services, vehicles, smart doorbells and devices (many of them *gasp* built in China), then sells access to detailed data profiles to any nitwit with two nickels to rub together, including Chinese, Russian, and Iranian intelligence.karl bode in techdrit
in a lot of ways, with the way zoomers and millennials have reacted to democratic representative jeff jackson trying to defend his yes vote on banning tiktok, this really feels like an unforced error. they're already having issues connecting with the youth vote re: gaza, kitchen table (or for those of us who can't afford dining rooms, coffee table) finances, kosa, apparent inefficacy with protecting civil rights, the appearance of being in the pocket of the ultrairich... this just seems like it's going to make it harder to convince younger voters to come out in november to prevent the destruction and desecration of the fine republic that nobody seems to want to keep.
posted by i used to be someone else at 8:22 AM on March 15 [9 favorites]
“TikTok is a Cyberweapon,” [17:06]—Ryan McBeth, 15 March 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 9:01 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
posted by ob1quixote at 9:01 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
This McBeth guy seems... not good? Is that the point? I'm sorry, the internet has destroyed my capacity to detect ironic intent.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:23 AM on March 16
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:23 AM on March 16
I got to watch the video. The intent is clear. Sorry for the confusion.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 3:32 PM on March 16
posted by The Manwich Horror at 3:32 PM on March 16
Intercept - TikTok Threat Is Purely Hypothetical, U.S. Intelligence Admits - “We have nothing to add,” the FBI said, when asked for evidence of TikTok’s actual threat
posted by cendawanita at 9:23 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 9:23 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
So. I've tried for like the seventh time to "get" TikTok, spent a few days telling it all the things I don't like, followed a few people. I would happily have told it all the things I do like, but I didn't really see anything on the app that caught my attention that I could reinforce positively.
I think I understood why I don't vibe with TikTok: it's mostly short videos (which I'm already not a fan of) of random people (again, not a fan) lipsyncing (again etc.) to songs (which I'm fine with, but I still don't understand the lipsyncing) with superimposed text (not a fan) in ways that are supposed to be funny or sarcastic (I would be a fan if they were actually funny, but no) but mostly fall flat, or short form rants about topics that don't really add anything or have an interesting viewpoint. Or both at the same time.
I'm sure there's something I'm missing but I think I'm just gonna wait for the next trending app to arise and see if I can get what it's about the way I don't get TT.
posted by signal at 12:08 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I think I understood why I don't vibe with TikTok: it's mostly short videos (which I'm already not a fan of) of random people (again, not a fan) lipsyncing (again etc.) to songs (which I'm fine with, but I still don't understand the lipsyncing) with superimposed text (not a fan) in ways that are supposed to be funny or sarcastic (I would be a fan if they were actually funny, but no) but mostly fall flat, or short form rants about topics that don't really add anything or have an interesting viewpoint. Or both at the same time.
I'm sure there's something I'm missing but I think I'm just gonna wait for the next trending app to arise and see if I can get what it's about the way I don't get TT.
posted by signal at 12:08 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I can't stand Tiktok myself. I don't have an account, and whenever I am exposed to it by friends I find it incredibly grating. But I don't think my introverted middle aged cis white guy tastes should have any weight in determining what should be banned nation wide.
If they did, frankly anime and punk rock would come in for it well before Tiktok did.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 12:42 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
If they did, frankly anime and punk rock would come in for it well before Tiktok did.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 12:42 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Also, dance challenges. Not a fan, either
posted by signal at 12:51 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
posted by signal at 12:51 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Congressman Apologizes After Voting for TikTok Ban, Would Like the Yelling to Stop
posted by Artw at 10:42 AM on March 18 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:42 AM on March 18 [4 favorites]
“The TikTok Ban Is Security State Protectionism,” Spencer Ackerman, FOREVER WARS, 18 March 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 3:06 PM on March 18 [2 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 3:06 PM on March 18 [2 favorites]
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posted by The River Ivel at 5:54 AM on March 13 [34 favorites]