More to the point: it removes the ability of the existing American establishment to monopolise the viewpoints presented to Americans.

The key point here is that an algorithm can invisibly nudge those viewpoints, and a foreign adversary controls the algorithm.

Insofar as your claim is that powerful people and institutions care most about power, I agree. It’s very telling that TikTok would shutdown instead of divest. (Meanwhile, U.S. companies have routinely taken the other side of the deal in China: minority stake joint ventures in which “technology transfer” is mandated. AKA intellectual property plundering.)

The reality is they live in an establishment controlled media bubble, that is itself full of propaganda.

Being free does not mean free to live in a lie constructed for the benefit of someone else, it means being free to live in reality, and that freedom is being denied to Americans. At least the Chinese are aware of their reality.

That’s to say nothing of censorship. I can post “f** Joe Biden” on any social platform in the U.S. Meanwhile, a Chinese netizen compares Xi to Winnie the Pooh and gets a visit from the police. And their post never sees the light of day.

These aren’t differences of degree. They are differences of category.

The reason you can is that very few people actually do. As the Tik Tok affair shows, the moment the US suspects it might have some real competitor in controlling the narrative, it shuts them down. Maybe it's the right thing to do, but it's worth taking note that it's how things are.

The whole point is to remove anything that may cause a passive media consumer to question what is presented to them.

They’ve each run ads on billboards in New York. I distinctly remember Xinhua’s in Time Square.

Al Jazeera America closed down some years ago. (2016 apparently).

My parents used to be addicted to Al Jazeera, then some unspecified incident occurred and we were never to speak of it again. All very strange.

Al Jazeera is widely known across the country, and during the time I had cable television was available in every city in which I lived.

RT is available over-the-air on free regular broadcast channels in some American cities. You can't get less restricted than that.

You speak like someone who's never even been to the United States.

RT America was removed from most services as of 2022 and hasn't been broadcasting since.

This is changing in the wrong direction and you are getting less free over time.

> You speak like someone who's never even been to the United States.

You speak like someone who's never left it.

In fact, even the idea of allowing CNN to broadcast into people's homes in Russia is so laughable, I don't know why you even brought it up, or what your point is.

No one's talking about availability in Russia except you.

And to add some substance about why AJ and RT can be accessed I will quote another commenter who put it better than I did: "The reason you can is that very few people actually do. As the Tik Tok affair shows, the moment the US suspects it might have some real competitor in controlling the narrative, it shuts them down. Maybe it's the right thing to do, but it's worth taking note that it's how things are."

That's the other side of the coin. Why do you expect one country to be totally open and allow the other to be totally closed? How is that a standard that makes any sense?

> "The reason you can is that very few people actually do."

I don't see what consumption habits have to do with anything. This is also contradicting what you just said, that people in the US don't have access to this content.

> As the Tik Tok affair shows, the moment the US suspects it might have some real competitor in controlling the narrative, it shuts them down.

Who is the "US" here? The U.S. government? A specific company? Without specifics you aren't really saying anything at all, just implying some greater unfalsifiable conspiracy.

The point is that their other media so promotes a lack of curiosity by providing a false impression of being comprehensive. If you risk bursting that bubble suddenly you are first mocked, then they try to buy you, then they block you, and tell you it is your fault.

The US is held to higher standards because that is how it promotes itself. Many of us outside the US are actually saddened by a betrayal of these values, because we are all too aware of how lacking many places are, and we need the US to be better than this.

I'm not being funny but I honestly couldn't follow that.

> The US is held to higher standards because that is how it promotes itself.

You are right, they are. That's why they didn't prevent TikTok from operating and growing domestically for years. Then the Chinese government starting using it as an asset of their espionage apparatus, so in response the U.S. STILL didn't ban the content in contains, but rather told the (apparently) independent company operating TikTok that the content is free to remain as long as it's not controlled by a hostile foreign government. The refusal to sell is the most obvious public facing proof that they are in fact Chinese government controlled.

All of that is how the U.S. is different, but as evidenced by this conversation and multiple other threads, no one really cares about the nuance.

And the greater context to this discussion is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

> if intolerant ideologies are allowed unchecked expression, they could exploit open society values to erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices.

The application of this principle can be seen when closed societies maintain complete control over their domestic media, while spreading as much toxic nonsense as possible abroad[1].

At the same they are completely intolerant of speech at home, they exploit the openness of the west by pushing disinfo they know to be wrong (and harmful) aboard. They continue to muddy the waters by pretending their information warfare is "just asking questions" (RT's moto is "Question More"). It's an extension of their hybrid warfare efforts, and shouldn't be seen as anything less.

[1] For example, domestic Russian media encourages citizens to get vaccinated against COVID19, while promoting anti-vaccine conspiracies abroad. This is one of thousands of examples. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/russia-china-iran-covid-...

Darn it, then decade I spent in Asia and the 100+ trips to Europe and the Middle East didn't prepare me for the rapier banter of some rando on the internet.

How appropriate.

You have to accept that the era of American exceptionalism is over and we’ll all be measured by our actions rather than the dreamy stories told.

Compared to all the other algorithmic social media in which domestic adversaries control the algorithm.

TBF; The CCP passed laws that likely make it illegal for TikTok to sell/export that kind of information (the algo). They can't divest without also neutering the sticking power of the service.

He can just blame it on Biden and use his time productively.

There is no evidence this exists.

This is not new behavior between the two countries, the only thing new is the direction. US is finally waking up to the foreign soft power being exercised inside our own country, and it isn't benefiting us.

Google was operating in China until 2010 when they got banned because they stopped censoring search results. Other Western search engines like Bing continue operate in China.

GMail continued for a few years after that - I'm not even sure if it was ever actually banned, or just suffered the same fate (death by a thousands timeouts).

The domestic companies lost some attention share to TikTok sure, and a ban or domestic sale would generally be in their interests, but it's not like they were about to be Myspaced. They've remained among the most valued companies -- presently and in forecasts -- even while it was "eating their lunch"

It hasn't been an overnight switch, but the trajectory did not look good for US companies. TikTok was even eating into TV viewing time. There's a fixed amount of attention and TikTok was vacuuming it up from everywhere.

Where? Stockholders have been vocally livid about it.

We should treat social media as the addictive, mind altering drug it is, and stop acting like a free market saturation of them is a good thing.

China having their more potent mind control app pointed at the brains of hundreds of millions of people is not something to celebrate.

It'll be revealing to see which political actors come out in favor of keeping tiktok around.

2) yes, that is an issue.

3) fair point.

This is distinct from a foreign entity, without registering as a foreign entity, directly participating in electioneering. While it's true that the Russian involvement in 2016 was overblown let's not pretend it's the same as legal political spending.

US funds foreign political no profits in other countries thanks to the Foreign Assistance Act agencies like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy.

That's besides the money funneled through other agencies which are more covert.

That means that countries around the world have US funded no profits effectively doing non bi-partizan political activity.

Officially those should only inform (foreign) citizens about their civic and voting rights, in reality they are more often than not tools of the US to influence and take huge biases in other countries.

And here's the underlying problem: as per American exceptionalism it's fine when US does that, but it's unacceptable when others do it in US.

*Source: https://www.emarketer.com/content/political-ad-spend-nearly-...

The huge difference is that while foreign adversaries run influence networks on other social media platforms (and are opposed and combatted by those platforms) TikTok (the platform itself) is controlled by the foreign adversary (the CCP).

And elections are decided by margins, pushing them even slightly has massive, irrevocable consequences.

There is no credible argument that the CCP doesn't directly control the alg as it's actively being used for just that in tawain/etc.

Does the US really want a (hostile?) foreign govt to have clear direct access to influence 170m americans, an entire generation - completely unfettered? Incredible national security implications. Bot farms can influence X/Meta/etc, but they can be at least be fought. TikTok itself is the influence engine as currently constructed.

Apparently, American users want this? Approximately 700k users have joined RedNote, a Chinese platform. It's out of the frying pan and into the fire for Americans.

There are 335 million Americans, and a lot of them are stupid and/or foolish.

As the SCOTUS said itself:

“At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should decide for himself or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence.” Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC

2. A core principle of the constitution is that those rights apply to noncitizens as well as citizens. They are human rights, not citizen rights. It's significantly more ridiculous for corporations to have free speech than a government. They don't have less of a right to free speech because we don't like them.

You may not like TikTok, but this line of argumentation also would allow the government to prevent US citizens from e.g. reading Iranian newspapers or researching Chinese media. The polarizing nature of TikTok obscures the fact that US users are losing freedom of access to information in this decision.

there is a difference between 'US Citizen having access to information' and 'Hostile Foreign Govt having Direct Push Access for news to ~70% of a generation of Americans as they go from puberty to voting age'. US isn't discussing a Great Firewall, the information will still be available, it just won't be as easy for a generation to be indoctrinated (well, by a foreign govt instead of our own* at least. Theoretically our govt has our interests at heart more than 'hostile foreign power' - but that's a different fight we need to have)

you can buy all of that from data brokers

> If, for example, a user allows TikTok access to the user’s phone contact list to connect with others on the platform, TikTok can access “any data stored in the user’s contact list,” including names, contact information, contact photos, job titles, and notes. 2 id., at 659. Access to such detailed information about U. S. users, the Government worries, may enable “China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-656_ca7d.pdf

It seems farcically ridiculous to me to ban the app because it somehow could let china blackmail CEOs.

What ZTE were up to was way more nefarious, but couldn't be done with just apps.

At some point, I realized that I avoid social media apps, and the people in those marches certainly don't.

I know that there's more to the Israel:Palestine situation than the attack on the music festival, but the fundamental contradiction that the side that brutalized innocent young people seems to have the popular support of young people is hard to ignore. I wonder to what degree it's algorithmically driven.

>that the side that brutalized innocent young people

…

Now if you wanted to compare atrocities—which honestly you shouldn’t—you would compare the Palestinian children that were brutalized both in the Gaza genocide, and in any one of the number of IDF incursions into Gaza and the West Bank before and after oct 7. That is compare victims to one side, to the victims of the other side.

But people generally don’t pick sides like that. They don‘t evaluate the atrocities committed by one armed group to the atrocities committed by the other and favor one over the other. And they certainly don‘t favor one civilian group over another based on the actions of their armed groups. People much more simply react to atrocities as they happen. And Israel has committed enough atrocities during the Gaza genocide that social media will be reacting—both in anger and horror—for a long time to come.

3. Then what is Microsoft doing in China? What is Apple doing in China? Etc. No tech company is banned from China, the only companies that choose not to operate in China are those that do not agree to follow Chinese laws.