I am wary of Chinese control over such an influential app and, potentially, its user data. But the internet is spying on us all the time, and I presume the Chinese already get a hold of a lot of that data. As for the Chinese influence over what we see... the Chinese government will surely slip some subtler nudges in among the makeup tutorials and cat videos.... But if you think that kind of gentle sculpting is so effective, you need to explain why the more overt efforts of countless establishment institutions, including our major social media companies, failed to get the American public to mask up, lock down and repudiate Donald Trump. I suspect the Chinese propagandists will simply discover what Americans already know: We’re too ornery to be controlled by anyone, including an algorithm.
We are affected by speech, and speech is important because it affects us, but the way it affects us is infinitely complicated. It's cute to use the word "ornery," but it doesn't express what we really are, and it's deceptive to refer to "control," because even if we can't be "controlled," we are open and vulnerable to complex influence. I'm "ornery" enough to resist this assurance that speech doesn't matter. I defend freedom of speech because speech does matter.
And it troubles me to see "makeup tutorials and cat videos." People who talk like that are revealing that they don't use TikTok. They don't know what it is. I could show you thousands of things that are not transitory fluff, but just as an example, let me show you this man:
And this is the woman he was talking about, responding to him, in the last video she made before dying:@notbrokenjustalilcrooked #Deborahfinck ♬ original sound - Not broken
@deborahfinck #stitch with @Not broken no matter what your going through life is worth living!❤️ #cancersucks #depression #anxiety #lifeisworthliving #family #love #hugs ♬ original sound - Deborah Finck
Posts
44 comments:
She is 100% wrong. I heard my kids say things about Gaza that came directly from ignorant TikTok influencers. TikTok is a very persuasive propaganda tool and many of our generations are not "too ornery" to fall for it.
Kids at my school ripped soap dispensers off the wall as part of a TikTok challenge. It may be that they would have done other destructive things anyhow, but they did that destructive thing because they saw it on TikTok.
Ooh, "Jane Galt" has an opinion now. Go back to Bloomberg. But aside from the notion that multiple leftist globalists are desperate to ban TikTok, they also want to choke X and Facebook back into line. Normal people shouldn't even take that at face value, much less follow along.
Besides which,this campaign of overt social media censorship further discredits globalism generally. Force them to either back down or continue bleeding legitimacy.
What sort of "things about Gaza"? False things? You sure?
TikTok is real, TikTok is earnest.
The Chikes strike again! Ooh, they is inscrutable!
A significant percentage of Americans, including a disproportionate number of highly educated Americans, continue to believe that Donald Trump won the 2016 election due to Russian meddling and influence on his behalf, based on (a) about $250k in ads placed on social media, and (b) completely debunked claims from Christopher Steele/Hillary Clinton that were prominently showcased on social media (and regular media, but regular media is so 2016).
A significant percentage of Americans continue to believe that masking, of the sort pushed on us during the COVID pandemic, will magically prevent the spread of COVID despite ample evidence since then proving otherwise, because social media embedded that belief in their brains too deeply for facts to change things.
Social media did in fact result in Americans masking up, locking down, and taking a dangerous unproven RNA "vaccine" in huge numbers.
But Megan McArdle clearly has her thumb on the pulse of America, so I guess we really don't need to worry about TIkTok.
Don't underestimate the power of social media
These are great testaments to the value of human interaction and compassion.
I just wonder, though how you conflate the medium with the message. It seems unlike you, so I wonder what I am missing. TikTok is just a medium, these message can exist on any platform. If TikTok were very unique and not duplicated and unduplicatable, I would say that we should very much fight to retain it. But even still, a valuable platform can still be harmful and we can look at ways to elevate its value while de-emphasizing its harm.
Just like with Dixcus, we can emphasize the positive affects of an open comments section while excising the trolls.
Maybe there are better ways to handle the TikTok issue. but maybe the threat of ban was needed to get the changes required. I don't know what the law can allow and what the technology can accomplish, but I would love to see an ability of the user to be able to see why a certain video arrived in their feed and have control on how that decision is made. The fear now is that waht is being pushed might not be in my best interest. I have no way of knowing and I do not trust the entity making that decision for me, and more importantly for my children (who I do not allow to use TikTok (except for the adult ones.) I exercise a total communication ban because I cannot affect the decisions made by others. The same thing happened with commercial TV. I could not control the adds, so I went to pay subscriptions.
I don't care if the Chinese spy on me. I am far, far, FAR more fearful of my own evil government and their handmaidens in Silicon Valley.
The Yandex search engine is based in Russia and works like Google circa 2009. No politically correct censorship or social engineering. If you search for "Viking girl" or "smiling white couple" you will not get page after page of black people and gay men. I would not trust it to give me the straight scoop on Putin or the Ukraine, but on everything else, it's excellent, and immune to at least cursory snooping by the Federal government or the cancel-culture crowd.
TikTok isn't particularly unique in its ability to poison minds. Kids are on instagram, and twitch, and God knows what else. The solution isn't banning TikTok specifically, but keeping kids off devices and social media until they are adults.
"Americans are too ornery"
Most Americans are too stupid to be ornery and most American's American-owned social-media habits prove it. Addiction algorithms don't care about nationalities, or ownership.
Megan McArdle appears to be employing wishful thinking - I wonder why. Her position sounds like the magic dirt thing: Americans are too ornery? Really? The same Americans who pioneered "speech is actual violence"?
Do we realize that the Ornery Americans are the ones complaining about the government censorship and are the ones our government wants to disenfranchise?
Is she saying the American public *not* mask up and lock down? They most certainly.did! Not every single person did, but no autocratic rulers get everyone to do what they want. That's why they need things like the Stasi and I saw plenty of Americans (maybe even mcardle) ready to fill that role during COVID.
The problem is not so much that TikTok will push Chinese Communist propaganda onto Americans as that it will push generally weakening poison into young adults and children, harming them and by extension the country.
Because I use a lot of anonymizing software and don't have a real TikTok account, the algorithm seems to give me very random stuff. On some days that random stuff is gross: for a while I was getting weirdo grammar school teachers bragging about how they manipulate their students around gender and sexuality. Then those disappeared and I got the same 2 or 3 stand-up comics. Then there were clips of violent horror films with female victims. The next day it was a whole lot of drug-related clips using euphemisms and emojis to get around words that are apparently banned.
Ann, you may not see all the disgusting and disturbing stuff, but it's there and it could easily be pushed towards vulnerable populations.
China obviously does not have our best interests at heart, so the ownership question is certainly relevant.
Enjoy your little echo chamber, excised of all thought that doesn't occur to you.
TikTok will only go away if the CCP refuses to sell it. Why would they refuse to sell it? Because it has value to them. What value? The value is the ability to weaken us. They are our enemy. They admit that. Why can't we take them at their word?
This whole, "We cant let china own a tik-tok, its a matter of national security" is so obviouly fake, why does any believe it? Are we are war with China? No. Are we in a cold war with China? No. Have we banned Chinese citizens from coming here? No. Have we sanctioned them for their tech spies or Spies in Government (Calling Senator Feinstein!)? No.
So, what "Chinese propaganda" are they pushing then, and how does it threaten the USA?
But we're supposed to care about Tik-tok. Fake, fake, fake. More likely others want to take it over because they want to broadcast THEIR propaganda.
As Turley says, it isi precisely hate speech, or speech you hate, that should make you say we need free speech. It's not harmless, but it's more good than bad. One can question granting free speech to people who, if they took over, would abolish free speech. The Bidenistas, and probably the Chinese. Solution: more free speech.
Reaching out to strangers and doing real good: this is part of the promise of the internet that I have not really been part of. My wife has. Before the internet we had a child with severe disabilities, and we were able to reach out to other parents who had children with similar conditions. There was some comfort and even advice to be had.
The reason TikTok scares the bejeezus out of our "leaders" is that we use our media dominance, social media, and disinformation to overthrow governments against the best interests of their people all the time. Right now we are pushing the lie in Serbia that their government is doing nothing over a platform collapse that killed 15 people, when in fact, they have made arrests, and three government ministers have resigned over it. We continue to push the lie to gin up crowds of ignorant young people to try to put a government more friendly to us in place there.
https://youtu.be/ObSDF-PprYc
The young woman featured in the video is ornery all right.
For instance that Taiwan is part of China.. oh wait, that is the official position of the United States Government! My bad. Not to mention the official position of the Taiwan government. But remember, if China were ever to invade itself, that would be horrible!
TL;DW: "China is making our young people stupid, only we can make our young people stupid!"
Tell me more about how they "failed to get the American public to mask up, lock down and repudiate Donald Trump."
I was deprived of my livelihood (totally) for eight months, then deprived of a living (partially) for much longer. A total stranger on the street told me to "mask up." I heard nothing BUT repudiations of Trump over the last five years. I overheard a colleague refer to the unvaccinated as "animals."
What planet does Ms. Meggie Mac live on?
I'm sure Tik Tok has been a very positive platform for some people and even life changing for some, such as the man in video. But wouldn't these type of stories happen on other social media platforms if Tik Tok were to vanish? Is there something unique about Tik Tok that fosters these type of positive stories?
The real problem is that we were unable to suppress the video coming out of Gaza, and the weak minded quailed at the effects that bombs have on human bodies.
I could show you thousands of things that are not transitory fluff, but just as an example, let me show you this man
I am unpersuaded by an …as a humanitarian service line, or the free speech arguments in general. The problem is the foreign adversary raw data mining us citizens. Yes there’s an only-we-can-do-that-to-our-pledges bent to that argument but we can save that fight for another time…
RCOCEAN II's got it exactly right. We do multi-billions in trade with China. China isn't a legal "enemy."
Unless and until we are at war and apply the "Trading with the Enemy Act" to China, or draft specific legislation to prevent Americans from visiting, trading or engaging in financial transactions with the ChiComs ----as we do with Iran, Russia, the NORKS and others----we should not be "protecting" our citizens against Chinese "propaganda.
Doing so is government censorship, straight up.
Neither McCardle nor Althouse fully address here the claim by US intelligence agencies that there are high level national security risks related to TikTok.
But they can't tell us what those risks are! It's classified.
Granted, they have well-deserved near zero credibility with many, but I don't think we can properly evaluate the TikTok ban based completely on free speech concerns without a clearer understanding of those claimed risks.
Rather than ignore this, we need to be demanding answers, not that that will do any good.
And, to continue, there is a possibility that those risks go well beyond cultural influence. If 170 million Americans have a highly intrusive program installed on their phones/computers and that program is ultimately controlled by the CCP, how much damage could they do, not to our culture, but to our physical internet if they go rogue? Does it amount to a kill switch?
I don't think that worst case scenario is terribly likely but it deserves consideration - and answers.
"Neither McCardle nor Althouse fully address here the claim by US intelligence agencies that there are high level national security risks related to TikTok."
LOL. yeah, its all "Hush, hush, top secret". "Trust us, we cant let you see it. " Like the Steele Dossier or all that stuff in the Mueller Report or Comey memos on Trump. Maybe the "national security risks" are from the same people who labeled Hunter's Laptop story "Russian Disinformation".
We arent at war with China. There's no reason the "Intelligence Agencies" cant tell us what the "National security risks" are. I dont believe for a second that China doesn't know our "Methods and policies". They certainly know everything Senator Feinstein knew.
The phonebooth stuffers and Volkswagon Beetle stuffers strike again! Get off my lawn!
But "I want to believe" they said. Rachel Maddow's followers want to believe. They really, really do. Not through social media either.
Next thing you know, people will be influenced by old Walter Cronkite, Paul Harvey, and Rush Limbaugh recordings!
@RCOCEAN II: Are we in a cold war with China? No.
Yes, yes we are. However, the USA is quite fractured and confused. We face a combination of internal threats (e.g., Woke racists; open-border proponents; incoherent gender rules) and external threats (e.g., Soros; China).
Regarding our de facto cold war: See China's Belt & Road efforts and building its influence in Latin America. See the US effort to source rare earth minerals from non-Chinese places. See the very real threats against every country facing the South China Sea, threats to fishing boats, and threats to US warships passing through. See China's very real threats to take control of Taiwan and moving TMSC production to the US (at least out of Taiwan).
The SwallowWell spy girlfriend and Feinstein's spy driver and Hunter Biden avoided sanctions per their...financial arrangements with compromised persons... See parallels to WW2 propaganda. See kapos. See Tokyo Rose. See wolves in sheep's clothing, etc.
This is the root concern. Add TikTok to Chinese mass-market drones, Chinese mass-market 3D printers (with smartphone interfaces), and the general uncertainty about where cloud data goes after it's online -- intrusive programs and covert data collection are what matters to the intelligence agencies.
The main issue is NOT propaganda, election manipulation, or the dumbing-down of our youth.
this.
The TikTok algorithm is, quite literally, the most successful and addictive part of the platform.
The sheer irony of the US imposing a ban on a Singaporean owned social media platform under the premise that it's run by the Chinese State, and the resultant being Americans flocking to a Chinese based social media platform is a wacky reverse-McGuyver move that no one could have anticipated. Hilarious!
Yeah, who knows what CHINA is doing with all those Social Security numbers, birthdates, dog pictures, and boyfriends addresses. Gosh, think of the danger!
Good thing we have Yankee Doodle Dandies like Zuckerberg and Google. They will keep our data safe.
Is it even about "Chinese propaganda"? I thought it was about China getting people's data surreptitiously. Or maybe about making us all stupid. Nobody is going to get Chinese propaganda on TikTok unless they are looking hard for it.
You routinely miss the point with your broad sarcasm. Two wrongs do not make a right. The US, UK, Russia, North Korea, Israel, China, Iran, and more countries maintain active spy networks. Some are very good at their jobs. Some may collaborate with cybercriminals to steal your identity and lock your accounts. Some may sit on data for 20-30 years, and then act.
We are in an era of asymmetrical warfare, and most regular people have given knowledge (power) to random social media firms and sketchy governments. People are happy, happy cows to be milked dry before going to the slaughterhouse.
Her old blog used to be a daily stop for me. Sigh.
"Two wrongs do not make a right"
We know we have turned into East Germany, but the ChiComs made us do it!
@Enigma: " People are happy, happy cows to be milked dry before going to the slaughterhouse...." The arguments vector all over the place, with nobody to draw them together and make sense. We can't quash this magnificent content, developed by all these wonderfully creative people ! Who cares if they steal my data, it's already (probably) been stolen by the Romaninan mob or who - evah!
Never saw such disregard, I guess the accidental things like Crowdstrike come and go and everybody considers these minor disasters to be the cost of having 'muh Tik Tok' ! Kind of like dismissing brush fire concerns, 'cuz they've always happened ! I guess we'll wait'll the big one hits.
Post a Comment