Summary
TikTok faces a U.S. shutdown by Jan. 19 unless the Supreme Court delays or blocks a law requiring its Chinese parent, ByteDance, to divest.
The Biden administration defends the law as a national security measure, citing potential risks of Chinese government influence. Content creators argue it violates free speech.
Donald Trump, once a supporter of the ban, seeks a delay to reach a “political resolution.”
A shutdown could cost TikTok millions of users and revenue. The court’s decision, due soon, could reshape U.S. digital speech policy.
Stricter laws restricting data collection would actually solve the problem but that will hurt the American propaganda machine just as much. China will diffuse it’s propaganda through our own social media like they clearly already do. They can literally buy the data from our own data brokers, it won’t even stop them from being effective.
Yeah, Chinese leadership was complaining about the mass migration from Twitter to Bluesky because it rendered their bit accounts useless, so it’s not like it’s a secret or anything.
This has always been about how TikTok can’t be bought out as a propaganda machine by American billionaires.
It’s not simply about collecting data. That’s only part of the problem.
Why do people keep repeating this like it’s the only thing.
Tiktok controls the algorithm controlling which clips get shown. Combined with the data, this means they can propaganda individuals so hard it will make your head spin.
this means they can propaganda individuals so hard it will make your head spin.
Until you have an open source algorithm then any organization controlling a social media site can push propaganda. Just like they do here in the US.
The reason that Tiktok is being banned has nothing to do with data. We know this because you can just buy data about Americans legally from data brokers. This isn’t about Chinese propaganda either. The real reason is that Tiktok is not easily put on a leash by the federal government. The real reason is that Tiktok has a large amount of popular leftist and anti-establishment voices. The real reason is that the US wants to funnel people into the social media sites that jump when the government tells them to.
Not leftist; pro-China. There’s some pretty clear indications that TikTok suppresses posts critical of China and China’s interests–despite those topics generating high engagement–while not suppressing information, say, critical of the US. They’re clearly acting as an agent of the Chinese gov’t.
That’s the thing about state media from China & Russia & Iran. Yes, they are censored in the sense they aren’t going to be critical of their host country.
However they are also a means by which certain anti-establishment voices from the West are able to get a platform. For example RT will historically interview people like Chomsky. It’s not because Chomsky ideologically aligns with Russia. It’s because “enemy of my enemy is my friend”. So just because something is censored in one direction, it does not mean everything else on the platform is false.
So if we go to TikTok, China is perfectly fine with certain leftist anti-establishment media whereas it would be algorithm’d away on the other major social media sites.
Again, it has nothing to do with TikTok being pro China. It has everything to do with the US government not being able to control what is on the platform for their own interests. TikTok does not have to answer to the US, and instead of us being OK with that because we’re a free country- we’re cracking down on dissent because we are becoming increasingly authoritarian.
People on the left in the west have plenty of platforms; they just don’t see the kinds of engagement that other ideologies do. To paraphrase, the right looks for coverts, the left looks for traitors. People on the left in the west are honestly their own worst enemy; they do a bang-up job at gate-keeping and pushing people away over minor ideological differences, and that drives engagement down.
TikTok does not have to answer to the US
Correct. But it does answer to China. And that’s a problem. Independent social media isn’t a problem; social media under the direct authority of a hostile authoritarian gov’t is.
replace “data” with “ads/propaganda/right-wing content”.
Sorry about the bad quality, i’ve resent this picture so many times now that there’s barely any pixels left.
Meanwhile, FB and Google which are courting Trump, and Elon courting both Trump and Nazis, are perfectly fine.
Why do people.keep saying this? It’s obviously not fine.
These guys get dragged in front of Congress all the time. The US has the right to take measures against a business they feel they can’t control, doing things they consider detrimental to it’s people. Ideally that would occur in a more balanced method than now, and it would be nice if Nazi’s weren’t also American citizens with 1st amendment rights, but here we are.
There are many Chinese based companies that do business on American soil with no issues. This isn’t even really Chinese based, but has a major Chinese stakeholder. For some reason, this company, over many others, was believed to be a threat. It may not be the weird racism you’re being led to believe. What if it actually is a very credible threat from an outside actor? Is there a world where that’s possible and acceptable to you?
Just curious because I feel like there’s some strange zeoltry for TikTok that I haven’t seen so much with other media corporations lately, that aren’t actively pumping out propaganda. FOX News being the obvious example.
No one thinks it’s a case of “weird racism”, but it does seem politically and/or financially motivated. If it was a legitimate threat, they could have informed the public as to the actual threat. The fact that they didn’t implies doing so would undermine the decision.
Beyond that, most folks are not mad TikTok is getting banned, they (myself included) are mad that obvious and legitimate threats to the public relating to social media and data harvesting are being ignored. And to avoid having that conversation, TikTok is getting a blanket ban.
What if it actually is a very credible threat from an outside actor? Is there a world where that’s possible and acceptable to you?
So to answer this question, yes, that is possible and acceptable in two (not mutually exclusive) worlds. One where the actual threat is revealed so it is obvious why it needs to be addressed. Or two, where the government is (or better yet already was) acting in good faith to protect Americans from the other more obvious threats of social media and data privacy violations.
Without one or both of those worlds, it is extremely difficult to assume this was a decision made in good faith. Afterall, they didn’t create rules to prevent TikTok from harvesting data, nor create rules that propaganda needs to be monitored and labeled. They didn’t draft up a Digital Bill of Rights to protect Americans, and then ban TikTok for violating it. They just dropped the ban hammer with a “trust me bro”.
And given that, it also shows how far the government is willing to go to avoid holding American companies accountable. Which, imho, is the crux of why so many folks are peeved with this ban.
Dunno why the last bit was removed. Ruins the wordplay that would apply perfectly here.
There we go.
