this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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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
Don't know anything about the specific situation about GPUs, but I do know that I'm not allowed to purchase an affordable Chinese EV in the US...
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).
No. It isn't that. Google absolutely will build a profile around you with "your anonymized" data for the purposes of ad aggregation. They collect information about everyone who uses their services. They do this in order to push ads not agendas. That's a major difference. In addition you can and many people do go out of their way to degoogle or not use any Google services. Making it so that Google does not have an effective or even viable way to build a profile on those people. You can't do that with tik tok.
Even if you're like me and have never actively used the tik tok website, app, or service, everyone you know who has the tik tok app is feeding it your information. It has system level permissions to a lot of apps. Asks for a lot of access to things the app doesn't need in order to run. Each time they use the app it takes information from all the other apps on the device. Including things like your texts phone logs, what banking apps you use, what medical apps you use. And it buys data from other brokers to build profiles on not just its users but anyone it's user's know and communicate with using that device. It then collates that data to build better profiles of non-users.
This information doesn't have to be stored on American servers because it's not the information of users. It's the information of non-users. And even if it were it would still be accessible by the company and the CCP.
We already know that some bad actors in the company have tried to use the data bytedance collect in order to track journalists with the intension of finding out who their sources are. The company called that bad judgement. I call it a major red flag to add to the stack.
What evidence? What reports?
See up-thread: https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf
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.