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Re:TikTok explains its ban on political advertising by neflabs on Monday October 14, 2019 @06:46AM (#21246779)
This isn't about political ads, it's about silencing any politics on the platform.

There are over 80 million US downloads of TikTok as of October 2018, with an active user count of 40 million [1]. This means China's authoritarian regime is influencing the political discussion of 40m+ US citizens.

You say this ban is good, I disagree. In the US, a lack of informed political discussion is one major factor keeping young voters away from the polls. It also prevents global free speech from reaching 400 million Chinese users.

1. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/

Re:TikTok explains its ban on political advertising by LocalH on Monday October 14, 2019 @08:41AM (#21247589)
This isn't about political ads, it's about silencing any politics on the platform.

That's not true at all, at least not on the surface. Do you have any proof of anyone being banned as a user for posting political content?

From the article: “Any paid ads that come into the community need to fit the standards for our platform, and the nature of paid political ads is not something we believe fits the TikTok platform experience,” says Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s VP of Global Business Solutions, who recently joined the company from Facebook.

“To that end, we will not allow paid ads that promote or oppose a candidate, current leader, political party or group or issue at the federal, state or local level — including election-related ads, advocacy ads or issue ads,” he says.

Re:TikTok explains its ban on political advertising by fwn on Monday October 14, 2019 @06:58AM (#21246870)
But isn't TikTok specifically talking about paid ads in this article?

Our parent wrote that paid political advertising is favoring those with the greatest amount of money to spend and therefore (as far as I understood) reducing the quality of political conversation. (Which sounds plausible to me, since money is a factor largely unrelated to quality.)

You seem to imply that paid political advertising is increasing the quality of the discourse. Is that right? If yes, I'd love to know why!

Re:TikTok explains its ban on political advertising by chrisseaton on Monday October 14, 2019 @06:56AM (#21246856)
> a lack of informed political discussion

Was TikTok was an appropriate place for informed political discussion?

Re:TikTok explains its ban on political advertising by liotier on Monday October 14, 2019 @08:02AM (#21247325)
The forum is the right place for political discussion, regardless of what the forum is. As for the political discussion being "informed", that is subjective.
Re:TikTok explains its ban on political advertising by chrisseaton on Monday October 14, 2019 @10:22AM (#21248569)
What are you using the definite article to mean there?
Re:TikTok explains its ban on political advertising by fiblye on Monday October 14, 2019 @07:42AM (#21247209)
> In the US, a lack of informed political discussion is one major factor keeping young voters away from the polls.

I agree.

But the purpose of political advertising is to misinform.