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this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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Technology
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Basically since Tik Tok launched, literally all I've ever seen from everyone regardless of age or political affiliation is that it needs to be blocked since it's a data mining machine for the CCP. Now that it's actually happening, everyone is saying the opposite, that we need to keep it, even though the data mining for the CCP is still happening. What the fuck is actually going on?
It’s probably not a data mining machine for china, they’ve done a fair bit to divest them selves from china at this point. If the CCP wanted to data mine Americans they can just buy that information from data brokers.
I suspect the main reason so many establishment politicians are terrified of it is because of how it suggest content.
Because there is very little direct user input on what it shows, It tends to spin people off in to communities and places people wouldn’t normally end up in. Trends there also tend to spread fast and unpredictably, most people won’t know about a trend until it shows up in their feed, making it difficult to monitor by a third party.
It can really throw a wrench in political messaging when you can’t be sure what narratives and ideas your constituents have been exposed to. These issues come from social media generally, but most big social media platforms are a lot less volatile in the trends, are easier to monitor, and are less likely to send people off in to spaces that they wouldn’t normally be exposed to.
I'm not convinced the politicians even have a clue what the app is, let alone how it serves content. To me, it seems like they really just want to keep data out of the hands of the CCP. The bill itself doesn't state that TikTok is banned - only that ByteDance needs to divest it to keep operating it in the US.
As a Chinese company, that's impossible. That's kind of like saying Mojang has done a lot to distance itself from Microsoft. Microsoft at the end of the day calls the shots whenever it suits Microsoft to do so.
That's the biggest issue for sure. It's the recommendation algorithm. You can use all the data you use for marketing based on feeds that people have followed to algorithmically create a sort of psychological profile.
Once you have that, you have a weapon because you can spoon feed an active user through radicalizing content. YouTube did it accidentally for years (though this has largely been fixed from what I've seen recently).
The CCP could do it intentionally and as they have the final say over anything and everything that happens at ByteDance, that's a huge risk. We don't need the millions of TikTok users being subject to an information psychological warfare operation.
They don't care too much about the data, though that might be useful to them as well. I think that's why they went along with protect Texas. They can still get the data out into China if they really want some of it. However, their main goal is influence and a direct line of communication to a large number of Americans.