Global digital rights advocates are watching to see if Congress acts, worried that other countries could follow suit with app bans of their own.
This article is what made me realize the TikTok ban actually has a point. It isn’t just about an open internet. It appears ByteDance is actively manipulating content.
edit: for the record, I was literally neutral on the issue until I came across this article earlier today
Then How is Google different? From my view, It also manipulates search results.
I don’t understand what US problem with China is.
Note: I am not an American nor a Chinese. I have never used tiktok before. I am just an outsider trying to get a perspective.
The US and China maintain a good economic relationship but aren’t exactly buddies when it comes to geopolitical issues and have very different viewpoints on things like human rights and democracy.
Yes, I know about that. But why is US limiting technological advancements in China? (By banning GPUs / companies).
I don’t see China doing the same.
Are you kidding? China has some of the strongest censorship laws in the world which includes filtering internet content and blocking access to apps. North Korea is the only country that has more repressed access to free information.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China
The Chinese government has banned, among others, Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, BBC, Wikipedia and … are you ready for this … TIKTOK. The Chinese government agrees that TikTok should be banned (though for different reasons).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China
I was not talking about censorship. I was talking about technological advancements.
But you have a fair point as this post is about censorship.
How is banning TikTok “limiting technological advancements”?
Would you agree that I was able to provide examples of “China doing the same” which you stated that you “did not see”?
I was not talking about tiktok. I was talking about them banning sale of high performance gpus to china
I think one difference is Google is a pull system: you query Google and get results. The short form video streams are push mediums. They feed you a stream of content that it thinks you want. They are fundamentally more susceptible to pushing a particular agenda.
The evidence from the reports in the above article certainly looks pretty daming that tiktok is pushing a particular agenda. The comparison to broadcast which often does have licensing requirements is probably apt.
I don’t buy the arguement that this gives cover to repressive regimes to censor more views because frankly they are doing that already.
Isn’t broadcast licensing specifically about partitioning radio spectrum space, which isn’t applicable here? US-based social media isn’t licensed and applying radio era law to internet may not be appropriate.
From the UK perspective broadcasters have a license to broadcast and are regulated by ofcomm. I thought the FCC had similar oversight of the US broadcasters - for example not being keen on swearing and sex on TV. For UK news programmes there is a requirement to be balanced for example.
Most assuredly, the licensing of the spectrum comes with requirements and strings, so those broadcasters are regulated. They must follow the rules or risk their license.
However, radio licensing came about to avoid broadcast “collisions” for amateur radio operators in ~1912. Regulations came later under the FCC in 1934.
These same collisions are not applicable to the internet (or rather, we’ve already used methods to avoid them, like DNS).
In my country every platform is pushing some kind of bias from the government.Government can ask to remove any kind of content from YouTube, Facebook, tiktok, etc. Especially political ones.
I have seen YouTube favoring one party in particular in their breaking news section even on a new account.
On a sidenote, its good for tiktok to be banned, I hate short form content.
If manipulating content were the issue they would have introduced a bill banning that practice. Banning a few specific countries from operating does not prevent sites from manipulating content.
Interesting article. I think the money quotes that shifted my POV a little were these:
It has become a leading source of information in this country. About one-third of Americans under 30 regularly get their news from it.
and
American law has long restricted foreign ownership of television or radio stations, even by companies based in friendly countries. “Limits on foreign ownership have been a part of federal communications policy for more than a century,”
It does place the ban in some more relevant historical context.
The fact that the current TikTok that is served to the world is illegal in China should tell you a lot.
Rest of world it peddles brain dead influencers to kids. In China it is almost wholesome and helps educate children…
Giving a Chinese multinational control over mass marketing to your children means it will be used for their goals… and not just serve as a capitalist add pushing platform.
Is the issue their censoring content globally or just at all. Twitter for example is known to cave to local governmental pressure but I suppose its limited to a particular region and people outside of there are still allowed access. Really I’m more disturbed anyone is careless enough to rely on social media for news. It’s no secret their all just regurgitating what they or the platform owners want. Most youtubers actively avoid controversial content just to avoid demonitisation; if youre on a platform like truth social id be surprised if you ever get an impartial voice. I literally only scroll tiktok for cute and funny vids.
TikTok isn’t doing anything that any other major social media company isn’t also doing. The only difference being that TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, and not a US one.
Just banning one app does little to resolve the overall privacy and information nightmare that social media is.
Oh? You have a source that other social media websites suppress certain stories?
The US government has always cared more about national security than the privacy of its citizens.
This is nothing to do with national security.
It’s being banned primarily because AIPAC and the ADL are worried that Generation Z aren’t falling for their Zionist crap anymore.
Great refutation of the data /s
Surveying content on Tiktok by hashtag is spurious. It’s not the primary method of content aggregation.
How else would you compare the topic of posts?
By the content of the post, I’d imagine.
People don’t use hashtags on a lot of sensitive topics, because they already fear suppression within Tiktok. The US based operation is already partially owned by Oracle (and all of Larry Ellison’s shenanigans) and Walmart as of 2020. For example, since October, Tiktok creators went to extreme lengths to mask the content of pro-Palestinian news, including using hand written note cards or other things that are difficult for automated filters to flag. Anti-establishment messages were already suppressed and widely brigaded by Zionists.
#Thispostisaboutfruit
Open internet- right- even every website forces you to use the app otherwise it nags you to death or disables features, or just sucks and the app is a mass surveillance collection engine requesting access to every service and sensor on your phone or no-bueno. So open, #open.
I’m all for things being open, but what the major social apps force you to do to use them is basically criminal.
Internet ≠ Web and other stuff on the application layer. But I agree this stuff is important to fix.
Yeah I get what you’re saying- I’m making the point that for an uncomfortably large portion of the world, including people in America, Facebook/instagram/tiktok IS the internet. We can ensure the pipes are clear all we want, but if the application layer is effectively the access portal and is in itself locked down with an iron fist, we’re ignoring the real and more immediate problem.
One of the great tragedies in tech is wikis/forums/message boards being replaced by discord, an unsearchable, ephemeral, corporately controlled platform. Have a discord/slack/whatever to chat sure, but put your docs out in the open!
