I agree in principle - but why is TikTok different - why then not, for example, Instagram as well? Is the content on IG any better? Does Meta for some reason have any one individual's interests at heart more than TikTok?

The only problem with social media algorithms to anyone is that that anyone is in its line of sight through the operating end of it. It’s generally inadvisable, uncomfortable and principally incorrect to stand downrange of such devices, that’s all.

Those should be broken up for different long-standing and obvious reasons, namely that they’re clearly prohibited by existing antitrust statute. That however is a different issue to foreign state controlled media.

It's geopolitical, and the 'content' stuff is just populism.

Insta is hosted in the US controlled by Western firms, not privy to the CCP and that's it.

Someone help me understand why I should care more about the Chinese government having my data than my own. My own government actually has power over me.

Because the Chinese state is autocratic and malevolent and has as a stated goal destroying American power and replacing it with their own anti-democratic power structures.

Setting aside the far more malevolent impact of American power, China has no way to use my data to oppress me. The US does, and routinely uses social media data against its own citizens and people abroad.

We’re talking about an instant, direct, and unobservable line into the psyches of tens of millions of American teenagers.

The only reason this is even an argument is deep influence peddling and a staggering complacency towards the real long term motives of the CCP. Which are related.

This kind of fear about large-scale communist subversion was common back in the 1950s too, yet that generation of American kids turned out mostly fine.

With or without several hours a day of Russian controlled media in their bedrooms?

I’m thinking without right?

This reads more like yellow peril hyperbole than reasoned arguments. The CCP is deeply unpopular in the US, and most US institutions are engaged in a demonization campaign against China.

TikTok is horrible and toxic. It should be banned, or at least tightly age-restricted. But I have seen no evidence they're worse than or a bigger threat than other US-based social media empires, and the proponents of those ideas tend to gesture towards vague communist conspiracies rather than point to observable evidence.

The communist conspiracy isn’t vague. It’s the literal stated policy of the leaders of China, backed up by overt military actions and destabilization campaigns.

It’s like not confusing or subtle it’s in plain sight.

It doesn’t really matter if you like to acknowledge it or not, the Chinese government has declared that it will defeat the U.S. and liberal democracy itself in a global conflict.

>It’s the literal stated policy of the leaders of China, backed up by overt military actions and destabilization campaigns.

Source?

If China destabilizes US democracy (more than Russia already has) that can definitely hurt you.

But it's not a competition. Both are bad, both should be resisted. I want TikTok banned AND I want comprehensive laws forbidding Facebook and domestic government from abusing my information.

Neither China nor Russia strike me as the main forces eroding US democracy (or whatever passes for democracy here), and the interference goes both ways. The idea that TikTok could drive the erosion of democratic processes in the US strikes me as silly, especially considering domestic forces like militarization and economic stagnation.

I'm actually all for a TikTok ban as long as we also ban other social media. I think it's all toxic. But the excessive focus on TikTok is just yellow peril/red scare nonsense in pursuit of a new cold war.

>The idea that TikTok could drive the erosion of democratic processes in the US strikes me as silly, especially considering domestic forces like militarization and economic stagnation.

With respect, have you been asleep for the past 7 years? The existence and tangible effects of foreign disinformation and manipulation campaigns are known and well-studied by this point. It's not unique to the US, the tragic situation in Myanmar would likely not have occurred without the existence of Facebook..

> I'm actually all for a TikTok ban as long as we also ban other social media. I think it's all toxic. But the excessive focus on TikTok is just yellow peril/red scare nonsense in pursuit of a new cold war.

I more or less agree here.

>has as a stated goal destroying American power and replacing it with their own anti-democratic power structures.

Source?

The source is endless direct and to the point statements in Chinese by the leaders of China.

If you don’t know before starting the conversation that you’re not really having a serious discussion of US/China relations.

Plenty of sources out there but my favorite is Matt Stoller. If you’re actually curious subscribe to his Twitter and Substack.

>The source is endless direct and to the point statements in Chinese by the leaders of China.

Would you be so kind as to point to a link where such "endless" statements are recorded "direct and to the point"? Primary sources are fine. I don't need translators.

Making egregious claims while providing zero proof whatsoever is a sign that the only thing you are serious about is manufacturing consent.

All due respect here, what exactly do you think China’s geopolitical aims are?

To project nationalist rhetoric externally as the means to maintain domestic political legitimacy, just like what the U.S. is doing.

I am not affiliated with any sort of decision-making body of the Chinese government so what do I know? It's all just speculation.

So, can you kindly provide a source that proves your claims about the Chinese government's stated goals against the U.S.? Just one source, one. It must not be very difficult to retrieve just one source material to back up claims of the existence of this grand death cult campaign propeled by the Chinese government, is it?

I already told you subscribe to Matt Stoller’s substack he’s been documenting it for years.

Here’s a non paywall summary: https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/125187888328203878...

I don’t really care for message board arguments with people who aren’t curious and are trying to score points by restating their not particularly researched position. If you’re intellectually curious about this topic you now have an entry point.

I asked for primary sources, not the distilled excerpts of some rando's Substack grift which I am absolutely not going to pay for.

>people who aren’t curious

I am literally asking for your sources because I am curious how you arrived at those conclusions, yet you refuse to provide them.

>trying to score points by restating their not particularly researched position

Those are some ironic words coming from someone whose best supporting proof to their egregious claim is one single person's paywalled blog as a secondary source. If you are anywhere remotely close to being intellectually curious as you pretend to be, perhaps providing actual sources will be a good start.

You probably should not care about it. The only real threat that China poses to people who live in the West is nuclear war, but that is already deterred by mutually assured destruction and in any case the Chinese government having your social media data does not make it any more likely that they are going to start a nuclear war. China's government is a threat to the people who live in the areas that it controls. Since I live in an area that the US government controls, the US government having my data is almost certainly a bigger danger to me than China having it, although to be fair the US government having my data probably is not a very big danger to me either. I find the NSA's activities to be more insulting than actually frightening.

Do you think that a country as large as China has agents in your country? If not, then continue to live a blissful life, if so, then how do you think those agents, or agents of any large country, accomplish tasks in other countries?

Perhaps you don't have access to anything they want, but perhaps you're a stepping stone to something they do want.

Perhaps you are not today, and of course perhaps all the children in your country are not today, but one day, some of them will be. Perhaps, some of those children are of those who China does want to influence.

Found the Chinese agent (the downvoter).

The value of the data can be as simple as knowing what negative messages/videos you'll continually watch and how those videos, in part, impact larger swaths of the population. And with data sharing between apps and devices, you could likely track actions across much of the web to the influence of these videos.

It's in China's interest, and others, to destabilize the populations of it's enemies. Traditionally this could be through propaganda, but a potentially more powerful force could be to make the population depressed, angry, confused, and distracted. This impacts the real world in your day to day, the communities you live in, and the quality/intentions of elected officials.

Now this could easily be accomplished even with the best intentions from the company creating the software. So how nefarious or not this actually is, or how much manipulation the Chinese government is applying here is totally debatable.

I'm not arguing for one side of that or the other. My point is data is super powerful, is often tied to apps and devices you don't realize, and can be used to motivate action at large scale, so the holder of the data really does matter.

That said, US companies and others outside China also have tons of data and use it for their own profit and potentially to spread propaganda and destabilizing information. In the US, as far as I can see, these tend more to be influential actors or groups, but the software company often attempts to moderate or suppress this because it can be bad for business. When it's a geopolitical foe who is or simply can cause issues this way, the intentions and lack of regulation are far more problematic.

I think every other country should ban Twitter, FB and Instagram, based on these same arguments.

In fact, the world would be a better place.