Isn't the point that "choice" as you're defining it is a conscious, system-2 process, but the algo-served content is targeting much deeper, system-1 responses? If so can we say that people "prefer" to watch it, or that they've been conditioned to consume it? The question (to which I don't know the answer) is where does free will start?

Of course there is difference between institutionalized censorship and making social bubble by our preferences.

Did you ever saw on TikTok videos about Tiananmen Square, pro-democracy protest before covid or generally videos from handicapped people?

> Tiktok is not banning certain topics, as other platforms do Great point

> content on Tiktok is served algorithmicaly, ... due to their choice, not algorithm's Mixed, no production algorithm is without fingers on the scale.

Ticktock content is curated to fit CCP’s narrative not simply an algorithmic reflection of what its users care about.

Beyond that it was intentionally designed to have 15 second clips fight, which is the path to brain rot. The’ve slowly increased video length, which will impact what’s on the platform over time.

>Ticktock content is curated to fit CCP’s narrative not simply an algorithmic reflection of what its users care about.

If you can show evidence of that you should give it to the U.S. government, because it has repeatedly said there is no evidence of such and any threat remains hypothetical.

> If you can show evidence of that you should give it to the U.S. government

Tens of millions of teenage Americans are addicted to it is the evidence. Chinese don't allow their kids to waste all day long on stupid douyin, Americans don't have such luxuries, as tons of red necks are going to jump up and label it as anti free speech if you want something similar. As a result, you see Chinese kids spend time on STEM subjects, building toy robots and learning how to code AI stuff while American kids are all dreaming to be the most popular influencer on social media.

The whole system is an algorithm carefully designed. Let's just be honest. btw, Chinese national posting from China here, you'd be seeing me protesting in the Tiananmen Square if some American social media apps manage to waste Chinese teens time while being carefully restricted in the US for their own kids. It is just shocking to see it takes almost a decade for the US to actually start doing something concrete.

> Tens of millions of teenage Americans are addicted to it is the evidence. Chinese don't allow their kids to waste all day long on stupid douyin, Americans don't have such luxuries, as tons of red necks are going to jump up and label it as anti free speech if you want something similar. As a result, you see Chinese kids spend time on STEM subjects, building toy robots and learning how to code AI stuff while American kids are all dreaming to be the most popular influencer on social media.

So it's Chinas fault that the US doesn't have the same laws restricting social media content and screentime for children? Or, if it is the red necks fault, then how does 'TikTok is spreading CCP propaganda' follow from 'US red necks oppose laws that are anti free speech'? It seems you're skipping some steps to get to that conclusion.

I’ve read it in a few places ex:

https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/NCRI-Report_-...

Not sure how creditable their research is, but I’d place it above random news articles.

There research is not credible because their only "evidence" is that when using certain keywords, Instagram and YT returned more "anti-China" content than TikTok.

So instead of arguing the U.S. social media has an anti-China bias, they argued that it's the evidence of TikTok being more pro-China.

Using American social media as the control group for neutrality on China is absolutely insane.

The most likely cause is that TikTok is just a lot less political and more international than YT and Instagram.

For rest of the world, people do not automatically associate words like "Xinjiang" to "Chinese government oppression", the fact that they expect that to be the top result can be argued that American media is the one manipulating information.

The damming bits were 100% on Ticktock, no need for comparison.

On TickTock, views to likes ratio for anti China content was 87% lower despite higher upvotes on TickTock anti China content. Read page 4 suppression on anti China content.

That alone shows the algorithmic alone isn’t selecting results and they are instead engaging in propaganda. The credibility question in my mind is in regards to how they are classifying videos and other bits you don’t see, but that’s a deeper question than the methodology.

> Tiktok is not banning certain topics, as other platforms do

Oh but they do, or at the very least carefully steer what you see by demoting certain subjects; don't forget that only in 2020 their internal moderator policies were leaked, telling them to suppress posts by ugly, poor and disabled people [0], or suppress streams that "harmed national order" or "defamed civil servants". Sure, this was the Chinese branch of tiktok, and the US / EU based version has distanced themselves from it - already mostly being its own platform. But this is where they came from barely four years ago.

[0] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us...

The specific topic in question is Gaza. TikTok has been accused of spreading pro-Hamas content and leading the young population to support Hamas, whereas YouTube and Facebook ban it on sight.