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The Billionaire Keeping TikTok on Phones in the U.S.
(www.msn.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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TikTok isn’t like American data harvesting apps. ~~For Facebook and Snapchat the main data purchasers are Ad companies.~~ (All mainstream social media is complicit in selling data to rival superpowers, I just believe Tik Tok intentionally feeds more harmful content to youth than other platforms) The CCP has party officials on TikTok’s board of directors. The app is designed to force feed an endless stream of toxic behaviors, overstimulating content, low quality journalism and disinformation mixed in with entertainment to the West’s youth in an effort to influence them. They take your data input (what videos you like, what you don’t like, what captivates you, how gullible you are) and create a psychological profile. If you have your camera and mic access on the data they can collect on you increases significantly. The more you use it, the stronger your psychological profile gets. At a certain point, they can start throwing in toxic content that fits your profile to manipulate you mentally. The main goal is to show you content that makes you angry, upset, or distracted to ruin your day. If you use it daily, it can add up. This is why we're having a national mental health crisis and why grades are slipping in schools.
Zuckerberg has been caught illegally selling data to China multiple times in the last decade.
Please tell me more about how Facebook is a better steward of my information.
I'm not saying Facebook is better- I despise Facebook just as much. I always thought of Facebook as the disinformation campaign for older middle Americans and Tik Tok for the youth. It's kind of mind blowing that they sell anyone's information to the highest bidder, and the politics of it are just a front. Updated my main comment to reflect this.
If you mean that they intentionally show you content to make you unbalanced and angry, we don't have evidence for Tiktok doing that.
But we do know that Facebook does that! As well as Twitter to an extent even before enshittification commenced.
Unfortunately this is a newer theory so studies are limited right now- even studies proving otherwise are inconclusive or nonexistent. I'd love to see more official research put into this or for Tik Tok to release their source code. I don't mean to come across as pushing a political agenda or spreading inconclusive information, but in my experience Tik Tok shows much more toxic content than other short form video platforms. I believe this is why the bill to ban Tik Tok got so much bipartisan support, but they can't release the information about it being a cognitive weapon due to it being classified defense information (I'm sure the US has it's own operations)
Here's a study from a British advocacy group against online hate and misinformation: https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/CCDH-Deadly-by-Design_120922.pdf Tik Tok allows content promoting eating disorders: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0267997
Here's the opinion piece that got me onto this tangent: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/25/tiktok-china-cognitive-warfare-us-ban Here's my favorite read, some brainstorming from a few years back by NATO about the future of information warfare: https://www.innovationhub-act.org/sites/default/files/2021-01/20210122_CW%20Final.pdf
I've also seen with my own eyes teenage relatives using Tik Tok and having a video of a gruesome dead cat, self harm or content promoting opioid use being thrown into their For You feeds (otherwise nothing but overstimulating slime videos and sped-up influencer drama).
Even if the current studies are inconclusive, why wouldn't they? They have the organization of the CCP, the short form video format to keep viewers addicted, the data collection technology, the algorithms, and the objective of getting an edge over NATO countries long term.
As for Facebook and Website formerly known as Twitter, their platforms are designed for discussion instead of a video feed. It makes financial sense for them to push controversial content that promotes a reaction- users stay on the site longer and look at more ads. They definitely need to be prosecuted for allowing the 2016 (still ongoing?) Russian Election disinformation campaign so they could churn a profit.