It feels silly with this coloring of TikTok as the evil when meta, Google and a dozen other American companies are doing the same, just less successfully because they let advertisers and corporate interests buy priority in the algorithm which literally just boils down to “you likely like the same stuff as people who like the same stuff as you”.

The catalyst for the ban was Israel/Palestine. You must consider this - TikTok did not adequately censor pro-Palestine content. This was confirmed as a major problem for Israel by the CEO of the ADL.

When an app gets banned because it is not inline with the US military industrial complex you must consider the spirit of free speech laws.

What material effects are those?

Or... regulated? I'd be all for privacy regulations and data handling regulations that would affect the algorithms of everyone but as long as the law is targeting TikTok only and not also FB, Insta, Twitter, etc, the idea that this ban is about "the overall harmful effects of the algorithmic firehose" is a total red herring.

I could absolutely see that being the case. Trump and the Republican Party now have a solid thumb on US-based social media via Musk/Zuck, which makes lack of control of foreign social media more of a pressuring issue than it had been before. It looks bad if the popular discourse taking place on uncontrolled media differs wildly from that on its controlled counterparts.

Every magazin with a title "bigfoot found!" reveals another "mermaids discovered" magazine, and below that a "tony blair is a reptilian, proof inside", and if people want to stay there and consume all the magazines, why not? In the end, there's more quality content there, than on discovery channels (ancient aliens, mermaids, etc.)

not even joking:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11274284/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1643266/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1816585/

...