Democrats have so successfully cultivated TikTok clout and the soapbox it provides for young voters — in contrast to Republicans’ far less enthusiastic embrace — that party operatives are now drawing up detailed plans to dramatically expand its use in the 2024 campaign. But that strategy is colliding head-on with the Biden administration’s push to crack down on TikTok....
TikTok... which attracted more visitors than Google last year, has done much to reshape American culture, especially for younger generations. That has not escaped the attention of politicians, including Biden’s team. The White House does not have an official account, but it uses influencers to disseminate its messaging through the platform....
The White House is now signaling its intention to ramp up its reliance on TikTok and other social media as the president heads toward an expected reelection announcement...
Internal analytics revealed that candidates’ TikTok cameos and meetings with influencers yielded significantly more eyeballs for fewer dollars than television ad buys....
Cue Republicans to double down on TikTokophobia.
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41 comments:
At least the Democrats are honest. Everything they do is based on "Does it help us keep or gain power?"
"TikTok... which attracted more visitors than Google last year"
This right here is the reason they are going after TikTok. You can safely ignore all the other blather about spyware and cultural influence.
Fewer freaks cavorting around the White House broadcasting drivel.
I can see how that could hurt the democrats.
Misinformation, disinformation, and cancelling campaigns comes back to hunt (sic) its bipartisan purveyors.
Seems the biggest cultural influence is the transgender push. Educators use Tik Tok to push their grooming agenda and "keep it a secret from the parents" .
Democrats are polluting Generation Z successfully through Tik Tok. I'm not even worried about the Chinese. We are destroying our own culture just fine all by ourselves.
The Chinese just gave us the rope to do it with.
You want to know how Dylan Mulvaney, the radical cross-dressing woman cos-player who became the face of Bud Light, got his start?
He got his start at Joe Biden's White House. Biden elevated and platformed this mentally ill person who caricatures women so ridiculously that it's patently offensive. Without Joe Biden's boost, corporate America wouldn't have embraced Mulvaney. That's why the ex-CIA agent who runs ABInBev in America thought it was OK to put this guy's face on their beer cans. He'd been invited to the White House. How bad could he be?
Mulvaney had millions of followers ... but of course, they follow because they're laughing so hard. It's hilarious watching this guy act like he's a 6-year-old girl. He's Barnum & Bailey freak show. He's not popular. People are GAWKING at him. Like you'd do a car wreck.
How'd this all work out for Bud Light? Turns out when you take mentally ill people off Tik-Tok who have lots of followers, and put them in real life it doesn't work out very well. Because at the end of the day, they're just bearded ladies. Bearded ladies are gawked at. People will pay to see them ... but not because you aspire to be one, or have one as President.
the thing about TikTok, is that it doesn't touch the political narrative UNLESS it attacks the chinese communist party.In fact, republican/conservative/LIBERTARIANS thrives there at least til it crosses the NASTY line. If, i was on the right, I would leave it alone til it affects National Security..
Voting, such a quaint notion these days. Everyone knows we don't count votes we count ballots and the important thing is who counts them not who casts them.
"But that strategy is colliding head-on with the Biden administration’s push to crack down on TikTok.... "
So someone assumes logical consistency will be applied? How cute.
There is no collision. Biden will say he's tough on China with the ban on Feds using TikTok.
The people's party (D) will gleefully use TikTok for outreach and to paint the R's as old and out of touch.
It provided an advantage to team D so no problems noted.
Country or party never used to be a question.
"...mentally ill person who caricatures women so ridiculously that it's patently offensive."
I don't think he's mentally ill. I think he's a parallel of Pee Wee Herman. A struggling and failing, wanna be performer. He stumbles onto an over the top character that catches on. And, like Pee Wee, he's riding it to the top.
Ignoring or laughter (at, not with) this guy* is the proper response.
* Yes, guy. By all reports I've seen he remains a fully intact male.
Huh. Back when I used TikTok there were plenty of maga trump vids. Anyone can play afaik.
Biden's threats ensure that TikTok will show its trustworthiness by banning all influencers who spread "disinformation" and "malformation" (i.e., about Biden) in the 2024 election campaign. Somehow, one suspects the Chinese managers of TikTok have already mastered this art.
The Chinese just gave us the rope to do it with.
The Opium Wars revisited with retributive change.
In the coming Idiocracy, TikTok influencers will replace the electoral college. Olivia Jade will have 6 electoral votes, Benny Drama 8, Dylan Mulvaney 12, and some Kardashian or other, a whopping 45.
TikTok... which attracted more visitors than Google last year
Is that because people no longer care about factual accuracy or because they realized that Google didn't care about factual accuracy?
The Chinese have so successfully cultivated TikTok clout and the soapbox it provides for young voters — in contrast to American’s far less enthusiastic embrace
fift
'The Opium Wars revisited with retributive change.'
That's what fentanyl is for.
Tik Tok is just the icing...
The world is laughing at our corrupt woke leftist MOB Corruptocratic party.
Peter Strozk might as well be president.
Mulvaney had millions of followers
that's The Thing, about Math. Numbers Are Important!
Mulvaney had millions of followers...
Hundreds of Millions barrels, worth BILLIONS of dollars of Bud Light are sold EVERY YEAR,
because in 2018, 54.39 percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 years stated that they drank Bud Light in the past 3 months
when;
a) Your product is OVERWHELMING POPULAR with the general public..
b) Your new spokesperson is (at BEST) marginally popular, with a Small fringe..
c) Your new spokesperson is repulsive, to the people that buy your product..
then;
d) YOU NEED TO LEARN MATH BETTER
"Times up, TikTok." - Montana
Democrats… throwin’ down, hand-in-hand with America’s enemies.
I wonder how many of the people whining about TikTok privacy use:
Google search
Chrome
Gmail
Google docs
Echo/SIRI/Alexa
Uncovered laptop cameras
Facebook
Facetime
WhatsApp
Instagram
and a gazillion other software and hardware programs out there.
For those who do, I don't want to hear one goddamn word about what a danger TikTok is to personal privacy.
There is no privacy on the internet. There hasn't been for 30-40 years. Anyone who expects it is a fool.
TikTok is no worse or better than the others.
It's like people posting under handles here and elsewhere thinking they are anonymous. You are not. Anyone can track you down in an hour or two using nothing more than a browser and a bit of searching.
remind.vented.uniforms
Ohhhh... but TikTok is Chinese, some will say. So what? Do you really think Google et al is not sharing your info with the Chinese or anyone else who pays them for it?
John Henry
People who are not content providers use TikTok to amuse themselves. They watch Ring videos of criminals or manifestos of crazy ass teachers or female impersonators or cute cats and dogs with the sort of attention people used to give the always on radio or television or the daily newspaper comics page. I'd say computers used for items requiring privacy or security should not have TikTok on them and parents should monitor their children's access but otherwise leave it alone. Like the printing press there will be upsides and downsides. And by the way, shouldn't an intelligence office be checking to see what's being downloaded or printed in their facility?
I'd never paid much attention to TikTok videos. I'd watch a few when Ann or someone else linked to one. But basically it would be just watching one at a time. I kept hearing about how addictive they are but didn't really believe it.
With all the hoorah, I figured I needed to find out what it was all about. So I put the app on my phone and used one of my google accounts to sign in.
Wow! Once I got in, I could not get out. Well, I could but didn't seem able to resist "just one more and then I really have to go to bed, get some work done, go to the post office etc"
I'd have a few minutes to kill and figure I'd just watch 1-3 videos. 3-4 hours later I would finally emerge. I've always spent too much time fooling around online but TikTok takes it to a whole 'nother level. It is like I imagine crack cocaine would be.
It is a hell of a program for identifying and serving stuff that I find interesting to watch. Stuff that if you told me I would enjoy seeing, I would have laughed.
I used to watch PawnStars on TV and always enjoyed it. Even to the extent of making a pilgrimage once on a trip to LV.
It serves up the occasional Pawn Stars clip. But it seems like avery 5th clip is of the competing Hard Core Pawn show. I never used to watch that but the clips are riveting.
Or clips of cranes. I never knew they would be interesting.
I realized that TikTok is like drugs, alcohol and some other things that are best done in moderation. I am no good at moderation, I am either all in or nothing.
I deleted the app from phone and tablet. I hope I can keep from reinstalling.
John Henry
""Some Democrats worry crackdown on TikTok could hurt party"
Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.
- Benito Mussolini (on totalitarianism)
Arthur C Clarke was a noted Sci-Fi writer who was credited with coming up with the idea of geostationary satellites in a 1948 novella who's name someone else may remember.
One of the plot points was that the satellites could beam porn anywhere on earth. Because they were in orbit, no government would be physically able to stop them.
Geostationary satellites are old hat. I think Telstar in 1962 was the first to be used for communcations. They are too far away and clouds of meshed satellites are the current technology. 20,000 vs 200 miles.
Musk's Starlink has been very successful technically and looks good commercially as well.
So what happens if governments try to censor or otherwise control StarLink? As Musk said when the EU threatened, "They can shake their fists at the sky."
I do not see how it is technologically possible to ban TikTok even on a national level, much less on a state level. There may be some attempts but "The internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it". That is what is was designed to do 50 years ago and it does it well.
If there is some way to ban it, what prevents China from using it's StarLink like fleet to beam TikTok into the US. Or even Musk relocating starlink to the Caymen islands outside of US control?
Has anyone ever explained just HOW TikTok could be banned? Closest I've ever seen is make Apple/Google take it out of their app stores. But one can still sideload apps without going through the stores.
So how do they ban it?
Also, there is that First Amendment issue. But that is legal, not technological.
John Henry
The closing line of the movie "The Man who shot Liberty Valence" is by a newspaper editor:
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend"
Seems like a great way to excuse printing fake news. Or mis/dis-information.
John Henry
TikTok... which attracted more visitors than Google last year"
This right here is the reason they are going after TikTok. You can safely ignore all the other blather about spyware and cultural influence.
Exactly. And, the FBI and CIA are probably less successful "educating" TikTok on the kinds of speech they should suppress. You scratch my back by banning competition and I'll scratch your by letting you snoop on my users and acting as a government propaganda mouthpiece.
@Hunter's Hooker
Given that AB donates 60/40 Repub/Dem the calls to boycott BudLite by Repub critters have dwindled to nothing. You're the one always calling for electability over principles. Conundrum?
'The Opium Wars revisited with retributive change.'
That's what fentanyl is for.
Yes, George "fentanyl" Floyd syndrome. Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter (SS BLM)
Tik Tok is just the icing...
Digitanyl for the modern family.
Democrats did the same thing when there was competition to Twitter 1.0, Alphabet, Facebook, etc. in the model closely aligned with the single/central/monopolistic axis (e.g. Obamacares) that enables and sustains progressive medical prices and trillion dollar national deficits.
Nobody has the balls to shut down TikTok. How about letting people use the social media outlet of their choice? Don't all these firms sell their user information anyway? Privacy is so 20th Century. If the PRC really wants to know how many teenage boys are beating off to the latest TikToc dancing girl in a short tight skirt, why should I care.
'For those who do, I don't want to hear one goddamn word about what a danger TikTok is to personal privacy.'
It's not just privacy, it's influence.
I've never (to my knowledge) looked at Tik-Tok (I know Althouse has posted videos from Tik-Tok, but I've never been interested). If the objection to them is that Tik-Tok is a "commie disinformation site", how are they different from ABC, NBC, the White House, NYT, etc. etc.? I thought the objection was that Tik-Tok can extract govt secrets from your computer. I have no government secrets. Does that mean it's OK for me to watch Tik-Tok if I want to? But I don't want to, so is it OK if I don't watch Tik-Tok?
I've been messing around with computers since the 70s and I first went online in the early 90s with Compuserve, so I'm not anti-technology, but when it comes to social media of any kind I've been a complete non-user. I don't do any of it, and never have. It always struck me as extremely high schoolish, and I hated high school.
I'll bite, Joe. Who is tiktok influencing and how?
They show people videos they want to see. Having watched perhaps 1000 videos over the past week or two, specifically looking for what we might call propaganda, I'm not seeing it.
It is addictive. It is a time waster. It is educational (I've learned a lot about cranes and Detroit pawn customers)
I've seen little that seems designed to influence my politics. Certainly no Chinese propaganda.
I'm going to need some explanation about influence how it exists and why it's a problem.
Maybe you can give some examples, Joe, of chinese influence videos you've seen?
John Henry
I suspect that Google by controlling what you see in search results exerts a hell of a lot more influence.
John Henry
Putting Joe Biden on tiktok might be the one thing that could insure his defeat next election.
The Biden admin doesn't care about TikTok, it's a ruse to pass a truly horrendous bill.
John henry said...
I'll bite, Joe. Who is tiktok influencing and how?
They show people videos they want to see.
I see that you tried the TikTok app and I haven't but I think it is incorrect to say 'want to see.' There is, as I understand the function of TikTok, little to no active user selection of the content other than passively continuing to watch what is presented. You're not looking up content like you can on YouTube or Google. Content intended to influence you could easily be inserted into the stream.
Much better to sweep info from OUR internet companies than those dirty commie bastards, right?
/sarc
Perhaps the fact that Zuck and other Lords of Information gave a ton of cash to the left and TikTok is encroaching (hard) into the queue at the on-line cash trough....
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