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this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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This is the wrong way to go about solving this problem IMO, but then again the problem they're trying to solve is more about security than privacy as a right.
Watching from Europe I have no idea what the problem is. The US spies on our data, the CCP spies on our data. I can see why the US government might worry that they can't access the data (except TikTok runs its servers on Oracle databases in the US just to satisfy them). But I don't understand why the citizens of the US would support tightening the monopoly to just Facebook and Google.
It’s not just about data and spying, it’s also about media and influence. The argument being made that it’s not a good idea to have a “hostile” nation effectively controlling one of the major/dominant social media platforms.
There is also the trade issue of reciprocity, China bans many if not most of the western platforms, while they have free rein to operate theirs in the west.
Exactly. They really sealed the deal when they sent a push message to get people to call Congress and stop the ban. https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/7/24093308/tiktok-congress-ban-push-notification
"TikTok can be used to influence our citizens politically" * TikTok proves it true immediately on a personal level for legislators * "See!"
Couldn't have found a better way to put gas on that fire. You're supposed to ~bribe~ lobby when they start talking shit.
Its actually also a media problem. For example, the largest Tiktok account of a german politician belongs to Maximilian Krah, of the far right party AFD. Just yesterday it was revealed that his personal assistant is actually a Chinese spy. Krah himself voiced a lot of pro-Chinese opinions before, like being pro annexation of Taiwan and denying the genocide on the uigyurs.
This begs the question if his Tiktok popularity is based on a non-biased algorithm or if the CCP made a deal with him, boosting his Tiktok popularity in exchange for being pro-China.
Yeah well, it's not like it's beneath the US government to do the same thing. Remember Cambridge analytica, or the Snowden leaks? My point being, as far as I'm concerned as a citizen, banning TikTok just transfers power to a more concentrated group of actors. That makes the problem worse.
Wan't CA a Russian op though?
That said, this new hybrid war era has nation states conduct disinformation campaigns against each other. Tiktok was a tool to conduct such a campaign, the US wants to defend itself. It's not like China or Russia doesn't do the same even harder to try and defend itself. It's not a crime yet to accept Russian money as an NGO or politician in the US (as least not in itself), it is definitely a crime in Russia to do the same.
Don't get me wrong, it's a move that will definitely consolidate control over opinions, and that's not a good thing. It's like a fever. We can't have nice things because China would break them, so we need to put them away until China stops doing that.
The US would break them (and has always broken them) even if China wasn't around.
How do you know? The US would be a different country if it wasn't targeted by Russia during the 2016 election. Russia made Trump. Russia made Brexit. How do we know how the world would look like if that hasn't happened?
PRISM
Bullrun
List of government mass surveillance projects
List of FBI controversies
List of CIA controversies
Human rights violations by the CIA
The CLOUD Act
This started long before the 2016 election and is deeply ingrained into the way the United States government operates. I'm definitely not saying China is innocent, but a lot of the US government's fears are rooted in projection. "We do it, so we must assume they do it too".
That's my point, all that shit was justified by pointing to Cold War enemies. Of course, no country exists in a vacuum, but if the US and the USSR hadn't been both engaged in a dick-measuring contest for a century, we would live in a different world. Both of them justified their horrendous human rights records by saying, "they are doing it too!"
The issue is that China controls the algorithm for what users see. This gives them the ability to manipulate users by showing specific content to sway their opinion on things. This is specifically about China's ability to manipulate US citizens.
Yes but Facebook / Instagram / Twitter also do this and it has caused huge societal problems in the US, arguably much worse than TikTok.
They do, and I'd love to see these laws expanded to include a ban against all algorithm manipulation. Manipulation coming from external sources is much more dangerous, even if local source manipulation is also dangerous.
It's weird seeing comments that outline the actual problem getting downvoted here more than the superfluous comments that do not address the real problem at all. Bizarroworld.
Agreed. People only hear/read what they want to read, and often tines its flamboyant claims that are not factual. :shrug:
As does Meta and Alphabet. Facebook famously ran a Russian information op in 2016, 2020, and looks to be starting up again this year.
The people are helpless lemming that mindlessly follow the algorithm, am I right?
Is free speech a moral principle we believe in? I know the Constitution doesn't apply to everyone in the world, which is why I'm asking whether we believe in it morally, not legally.
This has nothing to do with free speech. And yes, 90% of the people out there, including kids, log into tiktok and get a hone page for whatever content China wants to sling, of that's to turn group A more right and group B more left, or to push their own agendas. People just don't look at thongs objectively and tend to follow what they see. This is a security risk for the entire country.
It's not stifling free speech, and blocking content for the sake of blocking content that they're talking about here. Is it moral to block influence like that? Yes.
The Constitution absolutely applies to everyone within the US borders and TikTok US division is run out of Los Angeles.
Seems like a good plan to me. Forcing the companies with the most influence on American social issues to actually be operated by Americans seems like a no-brainer.
What's the security issue? That China has personal information about millions of Americans?
Who doesn't have personal information about millions of Americans these days?
It isnt about past data, it's about current data and trends. It's also about a foreign government controlling what another government's citizens see through an algorithm.
Haha right? Remember the Equifax breach? I think the security claim isn't genuine in intent, but I can believe that all else being equal, privacy violation does result in risk to security.
Even more reason to solve the underlying issues and hold companies accountable for how they handle privacy and personal information. Ideally I'd like to see the hoarding of personal data be somehow demonitized.