if you're European: the situation isn't a lot different from the US owning basically everything to do with social media (or, media at large, even communication etc;).

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it comes across as really tone deaf to hear people making a big stink and fear mongering about Chinese companies when we have proven and documented spying and interference from the US govt via US companies into European affairs.

The situation is a lot different. The U.S. and China are not similar politically and socially, at least not yet. As a case in point, note that U.S. companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google Search, and Youtube are blocked in China, whereas people in the U.S. (and elsewhere) are free to access services like WeChat and Baidu.

What's more, Europeans are free to develop their own social media platforms, and in fact I wonder why they haven't been more successful to date; there's plenty of software talent and cultural depth in Europe. It would be great to see more competition.

Your comment frustrates me a lot, especially the second part.

Not because you're wrong, but because any competition that comes up in Europe gets bought by the giants to the west, usually before they're globally known though sometimes not; I'm sure it's not entirely unknown that Skype was purchased by Microsoft at least, that was a pretty big player at the time.

In terms of general tech companies there's loads, including Shazam, iZettle, Momondo, Gamesparks, spider.io, Mojang, Apiary, Sparrow etc;etc; 52 by Apple/MS/Google in the years 2011-2016.

I'm honestly surprised Spotify remains.

A European social network has a really high barrier to entry compared to the US ones, sure, but all that meets them if they're successful is an acquisition- or at least that does seem to be the case with most European tech startups.

To your first point: I think the closeness with the CCP and closedness of the country would be fine points, my general feeling is that the US is a lot more clandestine with their methods (Snowden wiretapping of google revelations notwithstanding: most orders in the US come with stipulations that you're not allowed to speak of them).

Regarding the "openness", I feel like the US is battling it with Sinophobia, I mean, based on the former Presidents words at least; rather than an outright ban as the Chinese are doing.

What do you think?

Spoiler Alert: All governments capable of collecting data are doing so.

I don’t like _anyone_ doing mass surveillance but, as a European who also likes EU far from perfect attempts to curtail it, I do sigh when people think there isn’t a vast difference between US corporations and the CCP. At a bare minimum Facebook etc exist within a relatively free society with laws and elections and freedom of speech. It’s a question of degree and the degree is huge.

One difference might be that China is actively committing genocide

This would carry more weight if nearly every consumer good in the US wasn't made in China. It's very difficult to avoid giving money to the Chinese economy for ethical reasons at this point.

Yeah, I agree that the big stink and fear is way overblown. So's the censorship! That's why I'm seeing so much engagement with my Winnie the Pooh themed channel /s

Every country spies on every other country. The difference is that the US does have some amount of democratic oversight, rule of law which applies to everyone, reasonably functioning courts, separation of powers, basic commitment to humanistic values, etc.

None of this is perfect and you can aim a lot of criticism at various aspects, but I do think the differences are pretty fundamental and do matter.

I'm American. I'm a heavy libertarian and you are absolutely right, the US government is probably doing the same thing with local social media corporations.

This does not mean I believe we should give the US the same treatment as the CCP. The CCP openly enslaves people of other races and does not respect basic human rights.

And how exactly does that differ from Facebook?

Unless you believe in the deep state, the difference is that we voted/can vote for the people in power who regulate Facebook, here in the US.

We can regulate TikTok too. For them to sell ads in the US, they are under US jurisdiction.

They ignore U.S. laws. I even believe their transfer of user data to Oracle is an inside company joke. It's always "pending" and the project never finishes.

In the meantime they pilfer our personal data and use it to their advantage.

Then enforce the laws and start fining them for non compliance.

I have a better idea: how about we ban them from the Western world!

They're obviously up to no good and they ignore our laws. We're always two steps behind as they keep promising compliance yet they never do. Once we find them out they come up with excuses and promise they'll behave next time.

Like I said, I believe they're silently making fun of us. Having us run a rat race while they just keep on pilfering our personal info.

Ban TikTok!!

I'm all for banning TikTok if we apply the same rules to our own companies.

If collecting personal info is bad, then let's ban that rather than pick and choose our companies?

I read its different for Chinese kids on TikTok as the the platform does not allow the "destructive" content and garbage like it does in other countries. From what I can tell Facebook exploits everybody equally. Both are wrong but if true I feel criticism is merited.

Do we have a confirmation of this? It was said on a random podcast and then everyone took it as truth.

i've literally used the chinese version briefly and have friends from there. it's facts. all good positive influences there, no dancing thots and dph challenges.

OK but that's what you friends say.

I want an actual source, an actual study.

no. lemme flip the burden of proof: the CCP is a known hostile actor against our nation. i want proof that they're not doing something shady before we let them play with the minds of kids.

> I want an actual source, an actual study.

This could be applied to the US too from the perspective of all the countries it destroyed.

So no I dont buy the CCP is bad and the US is good.

i obviously don't agree with you on us "destroying" but they already do that. they literally block most of our stuff. so turnabout is fair play.

why are you advocating chicoms get special privileges to be let in without proving they're good relative to us having to do the same in china?

Because they have laws. They have laws to do time limits on social media, and co trol what content is recommended.

> all good positive influences there, no dancing thots and dph challenges.

This is 100% bullshit. I’ve used Douyin and it’s just the same as TikTok, and even if I haven’t, anyone with surface familiarity with human nature would know there won’t be a social media network without dancing and “bad influences”. Now, Douyin literally means trembling/dancing musical notes, guess where it got started?

Douyin does have a “youth mode” where supposed bad influences are more limited. It’s opt-in however, and through talking to actual Chinese teenagers I gathered that nobody uses it, because guess what, teenagers like the “fun” content. Enabling this youth mode is actually a prank they pull on friends.

Also, search for posts from Chinese parents trying to block Douyin on their router, you’ll find a ton. Guess why?

Normally I would chalk things up to differing perspectives, but your claim here about “all good positive influences” is so absurd I have to conclude you’re straight up lying.

They are both ultimately controlled by the CCP, however, the Chinese version is very restrictive. Having colored hair or tattoos will get you auto-banned. All the same evangelical-type restrictions apply of course.

The only thing keeping the western version from turning into a complete sewer are the advertisers. The TikTok Algo prevents people who are fat, wrinkly, too old, or unsemmterical (unattractive) from bubbling up. This is know from leaked internal documents supposedly.

> Having colored hair or tattoos will get you auto-banned.

I just opened the Douyin app and seven of the first ten human videos have people with colored hair. Tattoos tend to be subtle and obviously won’t be seen in most videos, but you see them all the time if you pay attention. Dying hair is so normal in China especially for women (usually to shades of brown, but some will use more lively colors), you can hardly film a crowd without capturing a ton of colored hair. There’s of course also a whole world of cosplay for every popular game and anime on Douyin. I don’t know where people are getting these ridiculous clips of misinformation and confidently spreading them around without thinking twice.

Edit: As an example, I just looked at the Genshin Impact cosplay tag. Tons of videos with hundreds of thousands to more than a million likes. Every single one of them has colored hair — purple, red, pink, green, blue, white, you name it. Conspicuous tattoos in maybe 10% of them. Go figure.

Here's the Chinese version, go check it out: https://www.douyin.com/

Kids my age don't use Facebook, and either way it's really not

You can't judge something you haven't tried.

I bet you view murder as a negative.

Murder has irreversible side effects. TikTok does not.

Irreversible side effects wasn't part of the original comment.

Also, any kind of addiction may have essentially irreversible side effects for those who are susceptible.

TikTok is directed at people who's minds are still developing (on purpose). It most certainly does have irreversible effects.

The tone here makes this sound like an insult, I had to do a double-take. Online discourse is hard!