> the level of anti-TikTok sentiment seems really weird, it really does just seem like sinophobia
"It's so weird how scared people are of falling under the control of a foreign government. Don't they know their own government is just as or even more corrupt?"
Granted social media have less influence than a government, but that doesn't make the risk go away. And yes, the same logic applies to US (social) media in other countries, though the relationship between countries should be taken into account when assessing that risk. Though that relationship is itself influenced by media..
> Not sure why you're discounting the potential for foreign influence campaigns from reducing the accountability your government has to you.
I don't discount that potential. I'm certain it exists. I'm also certain that it exists on youtube and facebook and twitter and reddit and will continue to influence US politics long into the future. Yet the US government has never once spoken about banning facebook and youtube or any other platform doing exactly the same things as TikTok, they're focused only the threat of the one Chinese platform while allowing China, Russia and anyone else to influence Americans though US owned platforms. They're even fine with letting China influence Americans using TikTok as long as TikTok is owned by a US company.
I'm just not buying the argument that TikTok represents a threat to our democracy any greater than the threat posed by youtube or twitter. I don't see how taking away our freedom to access/use a Chinese platform that isn't violating any US law and isn't doing anything different than similar US platforms are doing is really helping to protect us here. The US congress telling Americans what software we can have installed on our own devices, and preventing us from accessing platforms in other countries seems much more likely to lead us down a slippery slope than one Chinese owned social media platform being allowed to do what all the US owned platforms are doing.
> If tiktok was american or European, no body would've bat an eye.
That's because most Chinese companies are subservient to the Chinese Communist Party, whom are doing all within their power to undermine the West. Influencing young people is just one part of that. Is there something wrong with calling it out and preventing it, or should we just let them manipulate opinions?
> Sadly, it has nothing to do with "talking about how 'kids' might be influenced by an algorithm", because if it did, they would be trying to ban Facebook, Instagram, and other social media services that have the exact same effect as TikTok on children.
Do they? My Impression is a bit different here. TikTok is much more focused on the automatically selected content, and has fewer options for letting users make their own choices. The format itself (video) also strongly boosts the connection between people. And both combined let TikTok-Trends move much faster and ingrain deeper in the minds of people. It was quite interesting to see how fast and deep the brainwashing on TikTok was spreading after the CEOs appearance in senat, and also kinda concerning.
> US government does not want any possibility of US citizens' data being in the hands of China and their questions to Chew made that clear.
But isn't that legit concern of any country regarding other countries with even less security than you have yourself? I mean in Europe we also have strong concerns against the USA and their poor handling of data.
> Something I find odd is the focus on “data security” in basically alal media coverage and politician statements. Is that what’s at issue, or is it the influence the CCP has over people through tik tok?
Notice, for the sake of high level rationalism, that this is a false dichotomy.
CCP influence over TikTok is a subset of the bigger problems:
- TikTok, or the medium it operates on, is extremely persuasive, it's the most potent way to spread ideas from one mind to another (for example: the beliefs you hold about China's intents, which you do not actually possess knowledge of).
- The US government does not have a means to exert control over it like the other social media giants.
> But these kinds of comments try to imply that TikTok is uniquely dangerous when it's just more of the same.
It comes down to what you believe is the lesser of two evil systems of governance. I will not hesitate to criticize the United States, NATO, the central banks, or the IMF, and I have many problems with them; I would still prefer to live under their system as opposed to the kind of world that China proposes. I live in the United States, and to an extent I want the United States to remain stable. Why should I not be concerned that an adversary in both policy and philosophy gets to have as much influence as TikTok over the minds of millions of Americans?
The only way I could see viewing US tech and China tech as equal is if one has no connection to the soil on which they stand, or perhaps if they live outside those two systems. I don't live outside of those systems. I live in the United States. I don't think the future proposed by the United States or any of its tech companies is as bad as what China proposes to bring to the world.
> one key difference is that Facebook, Google, and others are still siphoning up people's data today.
Again, that is a point that no one is disputing. And why emphasize today? As far as I am aware, TikTok doesn't plan to mine data. It already does. Regardless, I can't see how it's defensible to allow an adversary that much influence over our psychology. It's one thing for us to essentially cause our own problems, but it's another to invite problems from nations that would be thrilled for the United States to either be under its complete control or not exist at all.
> Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?
I think they are in the sense that they're collecting massive amounts of user data about their users and I believe they wouldn't hesitate to share that data with the Chinese government if asked.
On the flip side, I also think their threat to our national security is being made a bigger deal than it actually is by politicians who have an anti-Chinese agenda and companies who see an easy way to cripple a competitor.
> but you will become just like China: a state that censors information and speech from its citizens because the government is scared of it.
There are several legit arguments against banning, but this isn't one one of them. Banning Tiktok is not censoring information and speech, let alone doing it because of fear. If it were, then they'd also ban all of the numerous other methods by which people can talk to each other.
> The fear seems to be that China could tweak a US citizen's feed, based on their profiling, to inject Chinese propaganda?
Yes, that's the assumption. And just to be clear, not feed you direct Chinese propaganda but drip-feed behaviour-changing content to make you more or less sensitive to some topics, and not necessarily you but maybe a different cohort they identify as being more easily manipulated. For example: teenagers or young adults (which are the majority of users on TikTok) that are still not mature enough to have developed critical thinking about what they are being fed.
It's exactly to avoid this kind of possible operation that the bells are ringing. Not necessarily because they are already exploiting it but because it's definitely a massive risk to allow such data to be vacuumed by an adversarial government.
> It made me consider the potential danger of a direct propaganda spigot from the Chinese government to today's youth.
What does everyone here think will happen on TikTok when the PRC invades Taiwan? TikTok will be a flood of "don't get involved", "The West caused this", and other PRC state propaganda immediately.
> That's not the issue, and it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
> It's not the non-US source, it's the governmental control for specific purposes
Perhaps. Or perhaps it's the US that's being disingenuous, and the real issue is that TikTok threatens what's otherwise a total US dominance of social media. (And note that the national security letter system means that the US has a similar level of governmental control)
Only figuratively in the hacker/gamer sense. TikTok is owned by ByteSense.
The "TikTok can be used to spy on americans" is much like "Russians interfered in our elections". Both are true, both are legitimately very concerning, but both are also things that the USA has been doing for decades with minimal domestic outcry.
So implicit in our attempts to reign in other countries behavior is that other countries should be attempting to reign in ours. If these are behaviors we think the world would be better off without, the best place to reign in that behavior is by starting with our own government.
> TikTok is a short video app used mostly by younger generations. It produces highly accurate recommendations for videos to watch. We're not talking about something like a banking app, a healthcare app, or even a messaging app. It's a video-based social network. There are bigger fish to fry than TikTok in almost every single possible category of app. Yet, TikTok is always brought up because it's from China.
If the leaders in the West weren't concerned about the "average Joe" and their (mis)understandings of politics and situations with complex nuances, then the West would likely be a true Democracy (like ancient Athens, where the People vote on issues such as War and Taxes) instead of a Republic or Democratic Republic (where the People elect a small group to vote on their behalf).
Regardless, I think our Western leaders SHOULD be concerned with the "average Joe" mentality. That includes, by a wide margin, propaganda efforts by other nations.
There are _far less_ antisocial practices featured on Chinese TikTok than on Western (specifically American) TikTok. However, the comparison to Instagram and Facebook doesn't differ all that much, so maybe they're simply giving us the content we want.
> The US does not realize that we are targets of a major attack using psychological, social, military, and economic attack vectors
Do you say that as an active user of TikTok? I scroll TikTok. My feed has been curated basically to show me exclusively dumb silly content (memes), cooking videos, etc.
If I were to scroll Instagram Reels, it'd be the same content. I'd be willing to bet whatever creators post on TikTok, also post on IG.
How is TikTok "home of toxic Chinese social attack" but IG reels (with the same content) not?
> Yes, absolutely. The US does not trust Tiktok because it is Chinese owned, or is it because of privacy concerns, or is it both?
Does it matter what the reason is? It's a foreign government owned media company operating in the US. The Chinese government doesn't have any rights in america. If the government wants to get rid of it, it can. China has nothing to stand on here. They don't even allow uncensored tik-tok in their own country, let alone facebook, etc.
>China has no jurisdiction over you… there’s no real punishing to relate to what you have viewed on TikTok, so why are your viewing habits a threat to national security?
I mean, I mostly agree with what your saying above this, but this particular line I disagree with.
People get blackmailed all the time for different reasons. If I'm looking for a person in a hardware/software company that has weaknesses, having a full view of their social media is a great starting place.
> Note there is a difference between saying one thinks TikTok is a national security threat to the USA, and saying one thinks the U.S. government should ban it (or so on).
In this case, I'm not convinced there is - the nature of the alleged national security threat is very different from security threats in the past.
From recent actions in Hong Kong, it has been evident that the CCP will arrest and imprison people for criticising the CCP. If the suspicion is that the app gives the CCP access to vast amounts of information (including people's political views via their posts) on individual members of the public, including on the Chinese diaspora (placing relatives at risk in China or they themselves if they visit them) that is a different category of "national security threat". It's not just that it makes political or military strategy harder, or even that it foments domestic dissent (foreign propaganda of the past). The allegation is it directly puts civilians in jeopardy.
If the conclusion is that the app is such a threat (puts civilians in jeopardy to a foreign government), it would be odd to support its presence in app stores, used in playgrounds, etc.
>If you don't consider every US company to be a direct arm of the US government but do for China then it's because your feeling about China than your feelings about social media manipulation.
I do. I live in the EU, and our laws arguably don't allow sharing data with US companies for that exact reason (Schrems II judgement)
It doesn't matter why TikTok does anything. They have shown they can influence their users en masse, and they're legally obligated to do it if the Chinese authorities demand it.
"It's so weird how scared people are of falling under the control of a foreign government. Don't they know their own government is just as or even more corrupt?"
Granted social media have less influence than a government, but that doesn't make the risk go away. And yes, the same logic applies to US (social) media in other countries, though the relationship between countries should be taken into account when assessing that risk. Though that relationship is itself influenced by media..
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