People seem to forget that China is a fully authoritarian state. The fact is that China is an adversary and blocks virtually every western social network, including YouTube, Instagram, and Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...
The CCP has absolute authority over internal companies to bend them to their will, and regularly disappears political dissidents including tech leaders like Jack Ma.
TikTok has over 150 million users in the United States, skewing young. We have seen the massive misinformation campaigns from other adversaries like Russia, with the goal of sowing dissent and malcontent.
All it takes is leaning on the algorithmic levers. Today the controversy may be over the issue you are passionate about, tomorrow it will a different issue, the only thing that matters is that TikTok is an open door to unduly influence public opinion in America.
The immense scale of data collection, from personal information to location tracking data, is also a clear concern.
Anyone that thinks it is reasonable for a geopolitical rival to control this company, especially a country known to reach its hand deep into company policy, is incredibly naive and self-sabotaging.
TikTok must be banned or fully controlled by a US based company.
> the only thing that matters is that TikTok is an open door to unduly influence public opinion in America.
The immense scale of data collection, from personal information to location tracking data, is also a clear concern.
I understand where you’re coming from - “they ban us so we’ll ban you” is a valid sentiment. But this grandstanding is like slapping a bandaid on a leaky tub and calling it “Job done”. I’m almost being transported to the 1940s with this McCarthy-lite take.
Everything that TikTok is doing is being done by Meta, Snap, Instagram, etc. If it’s not done through TikTok it’ll be done somewhere else. But sure, instead of passing real privacy laws let’s just also be authoritarian - I’m sure that’ll solve the problem.
> Everything that TikTok is doing is being done by Meta, Snap, Instagram, etc. If it’s not done through TikTok it’ll be done somewhere else.
Meta, Snap, Instagram (i.e. Meta), are US-based media companies and subject to US regulation and jurisprudence.
TikTok operates under the jurisdiction of authoritarian adversary. This undue foreign influence is the sticking point, not merely the massive media sway.
TikTok operates in the US, so they are operating under US jurisdiction and subject to the same regulations as US companies.
The main difference is political pressure, not legal. US companies will bend the knee to Trump, Chinese companies will do so to Xi. Both of these leaders are authoritarian, but Trump's government is also fascist. However Xi's government is more experienced and successful.
I don't know which is worse, honestly. I mean, at this exact second, China is obviously a more authoritarian state, but the US is riding a bullet train into fascism. So who knows what things will look like in a few years?
Everything that is being done on TikTok is not being done on the other socials. Some of the actions are more or less the same. The difference is in consequences.
Yes, they are all manipulating feeds. Yes, they are are using psychological sabotage and attention hacks to steal as much attention as they possibly can from every pair of eyeballs they encounter.
If Meta, Youtube, Snap, et al do something that is illegal, or violates social norms, or commits any of a thousand different offenses, legal or cultural or otherwise, they can be held to account. They have. Facebook and Instagram and Youtube and all US platforms have been sued, settle out of court, have been subpoenaed and forced to account for themselves in front of congress, etc.
China can use TikTok for many purposes, whether it's purely disruptive, or in pursuit of nation-state agendas, or any sort of nefarious deliberate action they might take. You can hold Zuck accountable. You cannot, with China, and because all Chinese companies are under state control, they are by definition not operating in good faith. They do not follow trade agreements, norms, or deal in good faith. They will steal IP, ignore sanctions, and do whatever benefits them most regardless of any agreements to the contrary, and will actively seek to undermine opposition to their greatest advantage. And they're more or less immune to accountability for anything they do outside of China, except and unless they make the state look bad, or costs them money or reputation in the market.
China chose to deliberately manipulate and abuse their platform by using it to cause all sorts of users to flood their representatives with calls - that one move, by itself, the choice of a paltform to deliberately intervene at scale and advocate for political action, should be sufficient to have seized the platform outright, and then tell China to go pound sand. Imagine how they'd respond to us broadcasting American Freedom TV across their whole country from Starlink satellites, with free satellite 5G compatible with their carriers, bypassing all their great firewall and censorship? As much as I loathe the authoritarianism, we ostensibly have to respect state sovereignty - China deliberately and specifically violated US sovereignty by manipulating a bunch of useful idiots to their own purposes, flexing on the US, threatening them with manipulating the electorate unless they played ball on TikTok control.
We should just seize it and tell them to pound sand, then auction the assets. You can't trust the code, so sell off the name, domain, the network to other platforms if they want to rebuild it, then scour the content and software and hardware, burn it, and salt the earth over it.
> China can use TikTok for many purposes, whether it's purely disruptive, or in pursuit of nation-state agendas, or any sort of nefarious deliberate action they might take. You can hold Zuck accountable.
Yeah they can in theory but so can Facebook. Remember Cambridge Analytica? They held Zuck accountable in the sense that there was a slap on the wrist and he went on his merry way. You can similarly hold the ByteDance US CEO accountable and they operate as a US business.
It’s all political theatrics and has nothing do with keeping our personal data safe or protect the American people. These companies might run in the US but corporations are beholden to no nation.
It’s funny because as a European when you wrote “Anyone that thinks it is reasonable for a geopolitical rival to control this company, especially a country known to reach its hand deep into company policy, is incredibly naive and self-sabotaging.” I thought “yeah, when you put it like that it would be AWFUL for the Trump administration to own it.
And then I read the next line and realised you meant China.
The CCP has absolute authority over internal companies to bend them to their will, and regularly disappears political dissidents including tech leaders like Jack Ma.
TikTok has over 150 million users in the United States, skewing young. We have seen the massive misinformation campaigns from other adversaries like Russia, with the goal of sowing dissent and malcontent.
All it takes is leaning on the algorithmic levers. Today the controversy may be over the issue you are passionate about, tomorrow it will a different issue, the only thing that matters is that TikTok is an open door to unduly influence public opinion in America.
The immense scale of data collection, from personal information to location tracking data, is also a clear concern.
Anyone that thinks it is reasonable for a geopolitical rival to control this company, especially a country known to reach its hand deep into company policy, is incredibly naive and self-sabotaging.
TikTok must be banned or fully controlled by a US based company.