The concern isn’t that these companies have microtargeting data. The concern is about what these companies could use that data for.
An off-brand t-shirt site would be a fairly ineffective vehicle for political propaganda. Tik Tok would be great at that.
Isn’t the primary critique of TikTok the number of American leftists and progressives posting on it?
Seems like the propaganda is coming from inside the house.
That’s definitely the critique coming from America’s right.
That said, both America’s left and right wing politicians seem to agree that it’s dangerous to have a mass media recommendation algorithm in the hands of a foreign adversary.
If they want to promote content favorable a Chinese political objective, they can use micro targeting data do that with extreme precision - if they wanted to.
It doesn’t matter who created the content or where it was created. What matters is the message of the content and who it’s being directed to.
That said, both America’s left and right wing politicians seem to agree that it’s dangerous to have a mass media recommendation algorithm in the hands of a foreign adversary.
The presumption that social media is an international weapon of war does raise some disturbing questions about the right to free speech.
It doesn’t matter who created the content or where it was created. What matters is the message of the content
What specifically are we referring to on TikTok qualifies that can’t be found on a rival platform?
Propaganda is a very well known way to enact influence on a foreign nation. It’s so well known that the US has 90 year old laws that limit foreign ownership of US media. For example, in order for Rupert Murdock to own media in the US, he had to become a US citizen and renounce his Australian citizenship in the 80s.
The people making the content have the right freedom of speech, but the people making the editorial decisions on what is / isn’t shown do not have that same right if they are not American citizens.
If tomorrow morning, the CCP decided to start promoting pro-CCP videos made by Americans, they could. And they could use micro targeting to connect people with pro-CCP influencers that were relatable. For example, I like nerdy shit, so I might get propaganda from a content creator that liked a lot of the same nerdy shit I liked.
The primary concern isn’t the content, it’s who controls the editor’s desk.
Propaganda is a very well known way to enact influence on a foreign nation.
Historically, the most effective use of propaganda is by the domestic government on its own citizenry. Closing out foreign sources of media, shutting down opposition venues for news and discussion, and criminalizing private parties that attempt to distribute outside opinion tend to facilitate the imposition of a national propaganda campaign.
The people making the content have the right freedom of speech, but the people making the editorial decisions on what is / isn’t shown do not have that same right if they are not American citizens.
This isn’t simply closing off access to “free speech”, it is closing off access to reporting on world events and international opinion. American citizens do not have the right to free expression of they are blinded and deafened to any kind of outside perspective.
How, exactly, do domestic residents gain information from the outside world if the state has the right to censor anyone outside of its borders from sending news into the country?
The primary concern isn’t the content, it’s who controls the editor’s desk.
If the US policy towards international media is “only American citizens have the right to sit at the editor’s desk” then we’re not talking about free speech, we’re talking about political control of the press. The “American citizens” canard is simply an excuse to deny Americans access to outside media.
It is also highly disingenuous. Nobody is proposing the US block access to the BBC or CBC on these grounds.
The US has different laws for media ownership depending upon what the type of media is owned. For example, networks like BBC America fell under less scrutiny because legacy regulations around paid cable broadcasters were less stringent than those given to free airwaves.
That all being said, all of these regulations, old and new, are basically trying to do the same thing - limit propaganda opportunities for adversarial actors.
IMHO, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to look at what’s going on in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and say “maybe the CCP shouldn’t have easy access to a major media algorithm where stars are literally praised for their ability to ‘influence.’”
For example, networks like BBC America fell under less scrutiny because legacy regulations around paid cable broadcasters were less stringent than those given to free airwaves.
Internet communications are functionally paid cable broadcasts.
That all being said, all of these regulations, old and new, are basically trying to do the same thing - limit propaganda opportunities for adversarial actors.
They are not, and that’s where this line of argument falls apart. The purpose of these regulations is to limit ownership of media institutions not propaganda opportunities for adversarial actors. If Steven Mnuchin’s group wants to take ownership of TikTok and run identical content, he’s free to do so. The important thing is that his insider business partners lay claim to the profit generated by the property.
What’s more, if Mnuchin is under the influence of a foreign government - his Saudi investors or UK/German financial allies or even other Chinese state actors using his firm as a foreign investment vehicle - that’s also fine from the perspective of the US government.
While it is inevitable that a Mnuchin owned property will see editorial content in line with his Trumpy friends, in the same way that Elon’s takeover of Twitter has turned it into a slurry of Apartheid South African style bigotry, this isn’t the purpose of the forced divestment. It’s just an anticipated consequence.
IMHO, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to look at what’s going on in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and say “maybe the CCP shouldn’t have easy access to a major media algorithm where stars are literally praised for their ability to ‘influence.’”
Wrt Hong Kong, isn’t this exactly what they were protesting? Chinese bureaucrats stepping in and closing off communications to the outside world, on the grounds that American liberal media might trick Hong Kong residents into violent disruption of the municipal economy?
If you’re a Free Hong Kong kind of guy, I would think the pacification of the city under Beijing rule is exactly what you don’t want to see. Similarly, in Taiwan, if people are being cut off from communicating between the island and the mainland, I would say that’s sending these two regions in exactly the wrong direction.
It’s akin to the mistake the Great Powers made wrt North/South Korea or East/West German during the Berlin Wall era. These divided states ratchet up tension as individuals lose contact with one another and states become a hot-house of domestically produced misinformation.
They’re right, we should regulate or ban then too.
Technically, the second partof that bill bans sending user data to China for all companies, so it’s foreseeabke that they get fined into the dirt if nothing else.
I hope the Facebook multi-billion dollar fines act as precedent.
it’s foreseeabke that they get fined into the dirt if nothing else.
Or they just route the sale of traffic through a domestic data broker and buy “analysis” on the Chinese side of the legal fence. There are so many badly policed and underregulated aspects of the data business that this shit never amounts to more than publicity stunts.
American trade with China only ever increases year-to-year, despite all the noise about a Trade War. Chinese based drop-shipping schemes only ever eat into our domestic market share, because American incomes are falling into line with the global average and that’s the kind of trade good international middle class workers can afford. And all this shit is getting blended together - Indian and Chinese businesses outsource to Indochina and Malaysia and Indonesia where labor is cheaper. Everything gets routed and flagged through Singapore anyway, so the real origin of a good is obscured by the time it lands on your doorstep. And nobody in the business of making money wants to pay a politician to do anything about this in practice.
Nobody is getting fined, much less into-the-dirt.
Or they just route the sale of traffic through a domestic data broker and buy “analysis” on the Chinese side of the legal fence. There are so many badly policed and underregulated aspects of the data business that this shit never amounts to more than publicity stunts.
That is literally what Facebook was fined for, BEFORE the new laws were put in place. Cambridge Analytica did what you just described.
Like Temu?
You mean like facebook and twitter.
Yeah, better ban them all, don’t see why not
I generally think that TikTok sucks but do agree with this argument. It’s silly to say that domestic companies can be evil but foreign ones no.
The argument isn’t that they’re “evil”, it’s that they could be used as tools by strategic rivals.
I mean. Why not?
What about Lenovo, Aliexpress, Xiaomi, Didi (It’s famous in latam), BYD, NIO?
I think it should depend on the software and what’s being collected & shared, also where it’s hosted.
While Lenovo has have some securities risk & concerns in the past. You can circumvented a lot by installing a fresh copy of windows or Linux. They don’t really havest data or track you like TikTok does. There is no algorithm, no influence on politics or feeding propaganda.
I think TikTok would be okay, if Android had a better sandbox environment (like GrapheneOS), but google also wants your data…
Lenovo definitely deserves to be banned after that shit they pulled with the malicious root certificates.
I bet you they can actually
Fisher said that Americans have a “fundamental interest” in working with the publisher or editor of their choice
Bruh. Did you really just throw away all of your Section 230 protections?
Game on, motherfucker.
Fine then, ban all the Chinese spy apps
I’d rather they just ban spy apps in general…but that’s a “dream a little dream, it’s never gonna happen” type of thing.
You can’t spy on our citizens, that’s our (and our corporations’) job!
Signed, the US Government
This thread has made me realize that while I was watching the hearings on it purely for comedy aspect, there were actually people out there being like, “Yeah that makes sense.”
Love it when the government takes away our stuff. Please, take away more of our stuff. Love me that security theater.
If you don’t like the app, just don’t use it. Nationalism is a hell of a drug.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with data security and everything to do with other social media companies lobbying to eliminate a competitor, using anti-China sentiment and fear-mongering as a justification. It’s all about the money.
