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imgabe | on: Trudeau government bans TikTok from operating in Canada
It is not about the data. It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that.

Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish.

bhouston | parent | next
> Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish.

It is happening on our local platforms here. Meta, based in the US, is systematically censoring Palestinian content that would otherwise be available here in Canada.

Details:

* https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...

* https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palesti...

For a very recent example, one of the few remaining prominent Palestinian journalists, with a following of over 1M on Meta, was banned today:

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/11/7/al-jaze...

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cpursley | parent | next
What’s crazy is few people even talk about who currently owns major US news networks and what their motives might be. People don’t like Musk owning Twitter/X, that’s a start - but start reading about who owns the rest (especially traditional media).
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kaliqt | parent | next
As opposed to the domestic government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that.
macNchz | root | parent | next
If you live in a democracy you have a vote and a voice to bring to the table. It’s wild to me that on this topic people seem to see their own governments as largely equivalent to an outwardly adversarial if not explicitly hostile foreign power.

I think it has been so long since the Pax-Americana West has dealt with an overtly hostile major power that we’ve collectively lost the concept that there can be real enemies with goals that run explicitly counter to our own.

kaliqt | root | parent | next
This is patently untrue. The American Federal government is not swayed by votes directly in any reliable way.

For example, a vote for anyone is always a vote Israel and Israel's apartheid and wars. Sure, you can disagree with what they're doing there, but isn't it funny that we ALWAYS support them no matter what?

So, no, we can't just decide what we see, consume, or do.

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umanwizard | root | parent
The US political system is very undemocratic and most of us Americans have no more means of influencing it than we do China's.
macNchz | root | parent | next
I have plenty of beef with the American political system, but a loud group of motivated Americans absolutely has the ability to influence government decisions. If you, a citizen, decided you really cared about something, and gathered your like-minded fellow citizens to amplify your voice, you have a real chance at making an impact. That cannot be said in any way, shape, or form for a foreign power.
adamsb6 | root | parent
Lots of things change in China because people make a big stink about it. Probably the most notable are the lockdown protests, but there are countless examples of someone complaining about bad local governance and the national government coming in to fix it.

Chinese social media is pretty vibrant with the exception that you can’t agitate for the fall of the government.

csdreamer7 | root | parent | next
> Chinese social media is pretty vibrant with the exception that you can’t agitate for the fall of the government.

Or Pooh Bear.

Or South Park entirely after one episode of joking about China influencing Disney about Pooh Bear.

Or failures of the central government.

There are a lot of things banned online in China; this is so not true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China

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macNchz | root | parent | next
That makes sense for Chinese citizens, but I was talking as a foreign citizen, since we were discussing the differences between having your own government vs a foreign government involved in what content you see.
| root | parent
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tyre | root | parent
The Succession quote, “ I love you, but you are not serious people” comes to mind
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jvanderbot | root | parent | next
Well, yeah actually. If anyone is going to control it, it's best to be us controlling our own messaging.

As a citizen of a country, as much as I would love to believe in free exchange of information, it's better to limit what enemies are able to broadcast directly to our phones. that's a commons with a lot of tragedies in it.

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Synaesthesia | root | parent
But what is out there on TikTok that's so dangerous to the state? Dance videos?
usr1106 | root | parent | next
Making a whole generation unfit for qualified work is a serious threat for every nation.

Many of the Tiktok generation live in a world where reading for 3 minutes is a heavy effort they are unwilling to do. All information is supposed to be presented in short entertaining video clips.

In China online time for the youth has been strictly regulated years ago. But harming other nations is only in their interest.

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kelseyfrog | root | parent | next
The clearest way to look at this is through the lens of Althusser's Ideological State Apparatus(ISK). Media is one of the arms of the ISK. It's not necessarily that TikTok is foreign owned, it's that China's dominant ideology is incompatible with the western hegemony. The western ISK sees alternative ideologies as a threat and control over the arm of mass media is a concrete form of that threat. The ISK must have control over dominant forms of media in order to maintain ideological hegemony.
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wruza | parent | next
It’s your people who decide to see it, not a foreign govt. Chinese media like cnn and nyt exist, no need to imagine either that or the situation where China buys cnn and nyt and gosh now you have to watch their propaganda.

The essence is, by denying agency of your country’s users, you deny the whole set of ideas it bases on. If that’s a natural vulnerability of the ideology, addressing it by banning media is a patch over a bleeding wound.

Canadian teens will simply learn about VPN, like they always do in other countries which ban internet resources. Not a single one of them will leave tiktok.

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beloch | parent | next
Canadian users can still access Tiktok and are still subject to Tiktok's algorithms. They're also still subject to Meta's algorithms that, unlike Tiktok, have already helped cause at least one genocide[1].

Tiktok's Canada-based offices must have been up to some other form of skulduggery for them to have been shuttered while leaving Canadian use of the platform completely status quo.

[1]https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

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not2b | parent | next
That can be a threat, but a billionaire American or South African with similar power and motivation is also a threat.
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octacat | parent | next
So, ban it when you have any proofs of manipulations. Or when there are clearly defined regulations in the law. Oh, and don't forget to ban ig/youtube... ah wait, giving the same rights to the foreign corporations is fine.
b3ing | parent | next
We have foreign born billionaires that own mainstream media outlets in the US so not sure it’s that much different
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nyc_data_geek1 | parent | next
Imagine if Russia owned Fox News. Oh wait
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cool_dude85 | parent
Let's take this one step further, then, and ask why we should allow private media ownership if it's this important. Why should some malevolent billionaire be able to own CNN or NYT and decide what stories they could publish? Does it matter if the billionaire has a US passport or not?
jvanderbot | root | parent | next
I really don't see why there's this cognitive dissonance. Limiting enemy states' government broadcasting power inside your territory is pretty low on the controversial things a gov can do.
cool_dude85 | root | parent | next
What's an "enemy state"? We're not at war with China.
dghlsakjg | root | parent | next
China is known to be actively spying and meddling in Canadian domestic politics in ways that are not legal or the normal diplomatic channels.

Describing them as an enemy might be too far, but you certainly wouldn’t describe China as a friend.

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dralley | root | parent
They're conducting active cyberattacks on our infrastructure and allying themselves with states (Russia, North Korea) that are actively at war with our friends.

We're not "at war" but that doesn't mean much.

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bayindirh | root | parent | next
Yes, as long as the same government doesn't bully other countries when their own propo^H^H^H^H^H social media platforms are blocked on the same grounds.
epolanski | root | parent
Since when is China my enemy?

If there is a major nation on this planet that has never done anything bad to mine in its history I can think of is China.

I can remember American, British, French troops raping and humiliating that country, I can't remember a single time the opposite happened.

While China does not always play fair and there's plenty of despicable things they do I don't like, I just don't see them as my enemy and see no valid reason to do so.

epolanski | root | parent | next
You reminded me of a fun fact.

When the Elkann family (which owns majority stake in Stellantis, Juventus, Ferrari and many others) got pissed off by the largest newspaper in Italy reporting on them (despite their businesses impacting the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Italians) they simply bought the newspaper and the major critical voice of them disappeared.

rgrieselhuber | root | parent
This is one of the main reasons we're seeing the legacy media lose legitimacy. People want to hear authentic voices and go to where the new ideas are.
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