"If China controls the recommendation system that decides what content people consume that, then they can influence the narrative of the country."
What makes Chinese propaganda so powerful, even in the form of silly 30 seconds dancing? Or perhaps the real problem is not this? But the existance of a single non western source of consent manufacturing?
It’s like saying you should allow someone to punch you because you “should” be able to punch yourself harder.
The US controls Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, Reddit, Snapchat, Whatsapp.
Owner of Twitter has office space in the white house, and is calling for the overthrow of elected European governments and deliberately spreading misinformation.
Then the US sees one non-american-owned social media network and decides it's got to be banned.
Perhaps those Europeans should consider whether they want foreigners influencing domestic audiences?
Not in the way that the CCP controls ByteDance. ByteDance cannot win a lawsuit against the Chinese government.
China, Russia and Iran are designated adversaries and will be treated as such.
And I think Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, Reddit, Snapchat, Whatsapp should be also be far more regulated.
Musk won't be in the White House for long.
The mistake here is seeing the US action as a universal moral statement and therefore hypocritical.
The US action was simply pragmatic. There is no claim of universality or morality.
I very much agree other countries should also look at US hegemony through a pragmatic lens: is this a net harm? It’s kind of funny that you raise it as a gotcha.
TikTok is as much about silly 30 seconds dancing as Twitter was about posting 144 character messages or a prime time news program is about 2 minute clips with a voiceover.
The way you fail to even frame the problem suggests you either are oblivious about the problem or you're doing your best to avoid discussing it.
wtf
How about as little propaganda as possible?
No, im not arguing this because US already uses more propaganda than China. I was asking why americans are so afraid that chinese propaganda will be so more powerful than the Inês that they already have.
To really be fair, we should lock our Internet from China for 30 years and let the Chinese people have the full wide un-CCP-censored Western consent Internet you’re talking about. We can start with old favorite topics like T-square, Winnie the Pooh, that COVID doctor the CCP suppressed and then martyred.
Then we can sit down and have a frank discussion on what the terms of Internet use should be.
Until then, China should be grateful their State enterprises were allowed in at all.
But to answer your question, US propaganda isn’t countering because it just doesn’t exist. We have a free press. It can criticize the government, and does it every single day. The U.S. doesn’t do military parades, and its self marketing sucks because it’s not an imperative, unlike China.
Furthermore, China clearly thinks propaganda and intense censorship is the way to go. What else can explain the efforts to A. Block Winnie the Pooh B. Block the sale of TikTok? Profit clearly isn’t the motive now, which is very suspicious of such a large ostensibly for profit company.
The fact that the consideration to sell it to Trump/Musk in particular is floating around points to the political value of TikTok in the first place. Bribe the incoming admin, extract some favor in return, I.E. back down on Taiwan or relieve semiconductor tariffs.
It’s all obvious.
Hysteria or ban McDonald's/Pepsi/Coke/Subway/etc?
If you desire a strong analogy, do Hollywood, YouTube, Netflix etc, which are banned by the other side citing similar reasons to TikTok, I am sure. But the other side is totally authoritarian and we aren't, right?
When I say narrow, I mean narrow. The toppling of the Guatemalan liberal democracy and subsequent replacement by a dictator was performed at the behest of a handful of people who wanted to and did retire to a sinecure at United Fruit, and without the full knowledge of the president.
Something about The government you elect is the government you deserve.?
The Elon thing is way more brazen, yes. I also think many people would rather have than instead of two dozen faceless lobbyists sitting behind superPACs, at least you can point to the guy when he pushes for policy. If it was the norm that companies were completely public about showing up to influence politics that might make a better world, really.
Not a fan of the whole thing mind you, but if it's going to go down, I'm not sure this is actually worse.
Sure, but this is quite a different scale. Apparently the net worth of Trumps (official) cabinet, so excluding Musk, is 7 billion. For comparison, the net worth of Biden's cabinet was 118 million dollar.
Source: https://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/amerikaanse-ambtenaren-...
(Sorry for the Dutch source, searching the numbers gives English sources as well.)
The Elon thing is way more brazen, yes. I also think many people would rather have than instead of two dozen faceless lobbyists sitting behind superPACs,
The super PACs will continue to exist as well. I am pretty sure this will give some of the PACs only more influence/power.
at least you can point to the guy when he pushes for policy
In the same way you can point to the guy when he tries to interrupts peaceful transition?
Which brings me back me to my original point, the majority of Americans voted for a crook (interrupting peaceful transition amongst other things) and oligarchs. We'll see where it ends.
Its widely known at this point that TikTok is a Chinese owned business and that the CCP has a history if forcibly influencing companies to do their bidding. If people still want to use TikTok I don't see what the real problem is.
You're talking about people who say Haitians are eating pets and having the CCP dictate what content you consume is preferable than not having the CCP dictate what content you consume. Make it make sense.
I don't want the CCP, or any government, dictating what I see. Thankfully they really can't. They can dictate what is online on various sites and apps, but they can't dictate what I consume. I've never used TikTok personally, the CCP hasn't dictated anything to me at least on that front because I can choose what I look at.
And yes, there is big difference between the US advertisement industry, which is at least in principle regulated by the US legal/government system and thus, US citizens, vs. the essentially unregulated propaganda-machine that is Tik Tok.
This is not to say that a ban is the only option here. But I am not convinced that other control options are effective, or less of a danger.
We're definitely in agreement here, there are other options and all have their pros and cons.
The major risk I see with the TikTok ban is that it wasn't actually a TikTok ban, it gave the president new powers to unilaterally ban services in certain situations.
As far as TikTok goes the ban may be more effective. At a minimum I wish the law was specific to them though, and I can't support it simply for the new executive powers created.
(Not saying one way or another about banning the app, but discussion should start from a realistic assessment)
It's the direct effect of political pressure.
You nicer you behave to the government, the more carrots you get.
What percentage of population understands that propaganda can be subtle? Sneak some ragebait here and there to make it look like situation is worse than it is, exaggerate, radicalize people...
A kid should be out exploring on their own, shooting squirrels, riding their bike to the next town, bailing hay for cash at the farm at the edge of town. I didn't become a staunch supporter of most American classical liberal principles because an app told me to, it's because it's how I lived when I grew up. If you shut me in or chained me to a parent all day, well maybe you grow up with whatever tiktok tells you since you see it as the only way to stretch your legs.
Our cities are run by cars, children are notoriously bad at sensing them. I'm sure there's things that could be done but nothing, nothing can give a kid in Brooklyn the opportunity to "bail hay at the farm on the edge of town".
The idea that people can just choose to resist a foreign propaganda machine is just as comical.
ByteDance not only blocked the sale of TikTok to a US company but also TikTok unilaterally decided to shut down operations in the US to strongarm the US government to prevent it's sale.
If the CCP actually had no control over TikTok and at most they only held a residual non-controlling position, then how do you explain the scorched earth strategy that is only aligned with the CCP's strategy and throws all other shareholders under the bus?
More importantly, the company based in China, and the engineers working on it's recommendation system are based in China, and both are subject to the laws of China.
From a national security perspective, it's controlled by the Chinese government.
There is quite a bit of naivete regarding how the Chinese government controls Chinese companies.
It is very different from the US.
I happen to know how China works, have you got some example to present?
> It is very different from the US.
Actually, not really.
Can Facebook keep alive their "fact checking" program, now that Trump is president and not Biden, whose administration ordered it, probably more against Trump himself, than any other adversary of the USA?
Are Vanguard and BlackRock free to invest in whatever company they want?
For example: why are Vanguard and BlackRock backing Unicredit to buy Commerzbank, one of the few European banks not owned or heavily funded by American funds?
China has a faux free capitalist society. Chinese companies are the way they are because the government lets them be that way, not because they have the right to be that way.
It also sounds like an argument for parents to step in - every child is different and a parent should be doing the parenting rather than Congress and the White House.