December 27, 2023

"We’re in a season of hand-wringing and scapegoating over social media, especially TikTok...."

"Young people are overwhelmingly unhappy about U.S. policy on the war in Gaza? Must be because they get their 'perspective on the world on TikTok' — at least according to Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat who holds a strong pro-Israel stance. This attitude is shared across the aisle. 'It would not be surprising that the Chinese-owned TikTok is pushing pro-Hamas content,' Senator Marsha Blackburn said.... Consumers are unhappy with the economy? Surely, that’s TikTok again, with some experts arguing that dismal consumer sentiment is a mere 'vibecession' — feelings fueled by negativity on social media rather than by the actual effects of inflation, housing costs and more.... Why don’t we know more about TikTok’s true influence, or that of YouTube or Facebook? Because that requires the kind of independent research that’s both expensive and possible only with the cooperation of the platforms themselves... [U]ntil politicians and institutions dig into the influence of social media and try to figure out ways to regulate it, and also try addressing broader sources of discontent, blaming TikTok amounts to just noise."

Writes Zeynep Tufekci — a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University — in "Avert Your Eyes, Avoid Responsibility and Just Blame TikTok" (NYT).

25 comments:

iowan2 said...

AOC put out a Tik Tok video, making the claim Jesus was a Palestinian.

Not understanding Muslims did not exist at the time of the Birth of Christ. Mohammad follows Christ by 6 Centuries. The Muslim faith follows Christianity by 6 centuries. Muslim lands were taken by force, displacing Christians.

This is fairly simple stuff, if you care to do a simple google search.

So yes, too many people believe what no-nothings like AOC post on social media.

tommyesq said...

It is just like voter fraud - so long as we make no effort to find out if it exists, it doesn't.

Truthavenger said...

Yeah, my grocery bill is 50% higher than it was four years ago. It's Tik Tok's fault.

wendybar said...

How do you avert your eyes from what Hamas did to innocent people?? I blame the propaganda media in general for lying and spewing talking points from the Progressive left.

tim maguire said...

Did he start by suggesting TikTok is a scapegoat, far less powerful than we pretend, and then finish by saying TikTok needs to be censored to control its power?

The Gaza war angle is not so hard to understand—there are 50 Muslims for every Jew. So social media will naturally be dominated by Muslim messaging. This would matter less if our governments would enforce the law in the real world, where terrorist supporters have been allowed to take over the streets and disrupt our lives and attack our jobs and our cultural foundations with impunity. (Of course, it doesn’t help when mentally deranged representatives from Queens push outrageous terrorist lies like “Jesus was a Palestinian.”)

boatbuilder said...

Blaming Tik Tok wouldn't be anything like blaming Fox News, now, would it?

Darkisland said...

Every dollar advertisers spend on tiktok ads is a dollar not spent on Google or Facebook ads.

People watching tiktok videos are not watching YouTube Shorts.

There are other issues with tiktok but that is the main one.

John Henry

rehajm said...

Consumers are unhappy with the economy? Surely, that’s TikTok again, with some experts arguing that dismal consumer sentiment is a mere 'vibecession' — feelings fueled by negativity on social media rather than by the actual effects of inflation, housing costs and more

Surely this article was written with the primary goal of embedding the ‘the economy is not that bad’ propaganda they’ve been stuffing down our gullets like they’re making foie gras. When inflation gives you a 20-30 percent pay cut that sticks nobody cares the rate of increase has slowed to a massaged 6 percent annualized. The bank account is still hemorrhaging…

Kirk Parker said...

tim maguire,

Isn't the ratio more like 125:1?

1.9 billion Muslims, 15 million Jews?

Bob Boyd said...

Zeynep Tufekci what a fantastic name.

Big Mike said...

Regarding AOC, at the time Jesus walked the earth the region where Galilee and the city of Jerusalem are located was called Judea by the Romans, so Jesus was a Jew living in Judea. Judea was renamed “Syria Palestine” by Emperor Hadrian following suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in C.E. 136 (you may recall from the Gospels that Jesus was born during the reign of Caesar Augustus).

Bob Boyd said...

By the way, Zaynep is a woman, an attractive one.

narciso said...

Tupeci was not of the leading promoting of canceling because russia

Stick said...

TikTok is a Chinese Swiss cheese app according to my friend who just got her masters in cyber security & used to dox terrorists for a living Do not install it or let your kids install it. Not only is it rotting brains, but gathering data for the CCP.

Jupiter said...

"Writes Zeynep Tufekci — a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University."

We are paying this stupid fucking asshole to spew this bilge.

n.n said...

NYT hoping to share responsibility, deflects missiles targeting the fourth estate.

rcocean said...

Its amazing how stupid our DC Senators/Congressmen are, especially when they ALL jump on some bandwagon. No doubt because the Big Donors both conservative and Liberal are bribing them.

Leave Tick Tok alone.

Rusty said...

Sociology isn't really a science. More like an opinion.

CJinPA said...

'[U]ntil politicians and institutions are willing to regulate speech platforms, what's the point of pondering their influence?' Spoken like a man entrenched in one of those powerful institutions.

Joe Smith said...

It's the data scraping and the manipulation of events.

Young folks are idiots, and if you push something hard enough they will believe...

lonejustice said...

Yeah, my home insurance increased 25% in just one year. It has to be Tik Tok's fault.

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

Zeynep was so wrong on COVID, no one should listen to anything else she might say.

Tomcc said...

I don't use any social media, but I can still perceive that it has a strong influence among people, particularly young people. It's attractive to people with short attention spans but is decidedly lacking in broader context. Unless and until our educational institutions get around to instilling the value of critical thinking, this will be a societal problem.

Rosalyn C. said...

The world according to tiktok:
Jesus was a Palestinian, he was also a Muslim. That's for sure and there were no Jews living there ever!
Does that mean that the Palestinians killed Jesus? Oh, no.

mikee said...

The Houston Chronicle back in the 1980s every Sunday would run a front page that had national news on the top half, and the story, with color pictures, of a horrific local murder or car accident on the bottom half. It wasn't worth reading the bottom half, ever, as it was just gruesome sensationalized violence being reported. I don't know why they did that, it was gross.

Social media can do the same with memes, gifs and video clips of violent deaths.
Yay, progress!