I get your concerns over loss of something you enjoy - but the content is steerable enough by algorithm and addictive enough that a little twiddle of the knob, and suddenly a bunch of people believe some very harmful and hard to eliminate untruths.
Without making any judgments on the alt-right label, it was absolutely a real thing. Many documented cases showing how a fresh account could go from “Sesame Street, cooking videos, and CNN” on the default feed - and, within ~10 relatively innocuous clicks down the suggested video rabbit hole, the home feed would be full of Alex Jones tier stuff.
TikTok is heavily reminiscent of the old YouTube. Just taking a few steps down the Free Palestine recommendation road will get you into “Happy Birthday, Uncle Adolf” videos (hyperbolic, but only slightly).
I don’t blame certain parties for getting rather nervous over that. But I wish we could have some honesty from elected officials about why TikTok is suddenly such a pressing issue again.
Whatever happens, I hope they’ve learned from YouTube’s earlier mistakes. In trying to break the alt-right pipeline, they ended up breaking the entire recommendation engine for years (tbf it’s a lot better now).
That said I otherwise agree with you 100% - I saw folks get sucked down you YouTube pipeline then, and I've watched people get sucked down the TikTok one now, I got one person in my life to switch to FB reels, because I would correct the purported facts in each video and they found that annoying.
Agree (even if it is hyperbolic) on the yellow brick road model of radicalization.
Can we please stop admiring China, Russia, DPRK and other similar countries where having the "wrong opinions" is considered radicalisation?
QAnon, birthed in 4chan and largely disseminated to Boomers through Facebook isolated people and convinced a large number of people to stage a coup on the US government. I can't tell if you missed the QAnon craze, or you are intentionally being ignorant. I can't think of a single TikTok trend that comes close to the level of radicalization of QAnon.
There seems to still be a large conspiratorial rabbit hole on TikTok that still leads to QAnon influencers (using more generalized hashtags and catch all conspiracies).
Given the demographics of those most heavily influenced by QAnon, it's ridiculous to imply that Tiktok had even a 10th of the influence of Facebook wrt to QAnon.
It's really not. ByteDance isn't being sanctioned. TikTok.com will remain accessible to everyone in America. This is simply saying if it can't be sold to an American (EDIT: non-Chinese) buyer within a year, it gets removed from U.S. hosting and U.S. app stores.
> you can't claim being "the free world" by imitating China
Good thing we're not.
Or else be removed from French app stores yet remain available online? Without being sanctioned or blocked?
ByteDance's CEO perjured himself in front of the Congress [1]. Meanwhile, you can't Google the 1989 Tianamen Square massacre in China because (a) Google is blocked, as in actually blocked, and (b) the very term is blocked.
There are reasonable objections to this bill. Claiming we're stooping to China's level is not one of them.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tikt...
Oddly, the articles I've seen don't feel the need to specify there. Seems like a big difference to me, and requiring sale to specifically US buyer seems rather more of a takeover.
No, you are correct. Thank you. It must simply be no longer controlled by a foreign adversary [1]. (And yes, the term foreign adversary is defined in law [2].)
An EU, Gulf or Indian buyer would be totally fine if done in good faith, i.e. without being a front for Chinese interests.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... § 2(g)(6)
[2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...
Since I'm not it the USA, maybe I will be able to use the global TikTok that I love. Hopefully.
But this is not my main concern, my main concern is that you people act like everything is about business and the users are just cattle.
0 regards about the fact that lots and lots of people love this app. I'm one of them because its the last place on the internet where it feels like I'm not supposed to be outraged or spending money all the time. It feels like the old internet for me.
Also, if the American users are lost, I will loose a lot of great content.
I'm appalled that people here on HN have no ability to realize that they deal with real people and not only numbers in the analytics and the bank.
It almost feels like there's no sense of identity here, no sese of persons who must have freedom to use and consume whatever they want.
The argument goes "The Chinese are banning our social media companies, why would we do the same?". Why don't you rephrase it as "The Chinese communist part controls what apps and media the Chinese citizens can consume, why we don't control what Americans consume?".
Can you really not see that taking away a product that people use is not only about companies? Are you really that blind to see that you can't claim being "the free world" by imitating China?
Chinese government is not the ideal form of governance, please stop trying to be like China. Have some sense of personal freedoms.