These companies are saying they are committed to safeguarding user data by spending $X dollars on a privacy project. In reality this is just companies policing themselves. They can always circumvent this in the future and just claim there is a bug with the privacy code. Without any form of legislation or regulatory body from the government there are literally no consequences. Getting grilled on capitol hill is just optics, looks good for the camera. Congress would literally need to spin out something like the SEC but for online privacy, but I dont see that happening.
I don't know how to untangle it. It's obviously possible- BAE Systems Inc. (an American defense contractor) is owned by BAE Systems plc. (a British company).
It's doable when you keep everything separate, only hire US citizens, add lots of locked doors, and put people in jail if they leak. I can't picture this working with data that's not considered classified.
I'm wondering if it's not about the data at all. It's about who gets to control the information space. They don't even have to delete information critical of China, just weigh it down so it's essentially never seen.
I feel it's 100% about control. TikTok was eating their ad lunch. Growth potential for a creator feels much higher TikTok. The writing on the wall for me was when Meta, just two weeks ago, paused their creator payout for the TikTok competitor, reels. I also recall Zuck lobbying hard against TikTok for a while. Unsure if causation is there. But god damn that timing is sweet, eh?
The thing about politics is that it is the art of compromise.
I think it makes sense for policies to discuss the foreign influence angle separately from the domestic influence angle. Further, it makes sense to sub-divide the foreign influence angle along certain dimensions, such as, generally friendly allies (like the British) versus adversarial powers (like China).
Dividing problems these ways makes the conversations easier to happen, and from a political perspective, legislation tends to happen with a scalpel rather than a knife.
People always seem to want to say "if X is a problem, why don't we talk about Y instead" - in this case, if data sharing is a problem, why don't we talk about the bigger problem? The issue when it comes to politics is that the system is almost by design resistant to big sweeping changes.
There is a lot of value in continuing to have conversations about privacy. About domestic privacy. About foreign privacy. And all the sub-divisions possible along those lines.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, especially in politics. Instead of seeing certain targeted privacy legislation (like potentially against TikTok) as bad, see it as part of a larger conversation and movement towards tougher privacy legislation. As public sentiment turns more and more towards privacy, we can continue to evolve other dimensions of the problem space - including domestic.
Could someone enlighten me?
Chinese 2017 National Security Law Article 7 says "Any organization and citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work in accordance with the law" [1]. This law says TikTok must obey and help the Chinese government national intelligence.
The concern is that although you live in Canada, US, Europe; you can still be "arrested" by Chinese police working in hidden police departments in the Canada, US, and Europe [2]. And TikTok will tell them where you are. From the second article: FBI director Christopher Wray told a US Senate hearing in November that attempts by China to set up a police presence on US soil "violates sovereignty and circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement cooperation processes".
Under the ironically-named USA Freedom Act, the US government has essentially the same powers. My country doesn't have an extradition treaty with China, but it does have one with the US. There's no evidence that citizens of my country have ever been disappeared by China and taken to secret prisons, but there's documentary evidence that the US have done exactly that.
I'm genuinely trying to think of a good-faith argument for why Chinese tech firms are less trustworthy than American tech firms, but I honestly can't think of one.
That isn't arguing the "worse" part. Facebook is also going to support, assist, etc, with US national intelligence services. You can be black-bagged anywhere in the world by the US too, they are pretty famous for how far the arm of US law reaches.
Common arguments are that those two you listed are American-owned; that China bans US tech giants; that the CCP has outsized control of Chinese companies (and the data that they collect); and that TikTok's algorithm purposefully promotes content that will result in an uneducated, divided population in countries outside of China.
I am not saying that those are true or that I agree with them, but those seem to be the typical arguments.
From a outside perspective content on tiktok is no worse than Facebook, Instagram or Reddit. The main thing you notice about TikToks algorithm is that it's less a echo chamber and more inklusive to alternative content.
Really helpful, thank you. Still don’t see the problem, other than the need to educate kids on digital hygiene. But like anything, I bet they already know the harms of overconsumption.
1. China banned Facebook after it refused to cooperate with law enforcement following the Urumqi riots. Google and others decided the cost of following censorship laws was too high compared to the return and decided to retreat. Other American tech giants like Microsoft, Apple and IBM have a presence in China. However unjust China's laws may be, there's a qualitative differences between applying it to all companies in the same way vs. what the US is attempting to do with TikTok.
2. From an American point of view, this strikes true. For the rest of the world there's hardly a difference. If any, the US has proved it is willing to enforce its will globally against non-citizens with all means possible (see fe. Julian Assange).
3. Youtubes algorithm is strongly driven by controversy, Instagram seems to be responsible for a large amount of body dismorphia and depression in young people. I'm all for more research and stricter policies to suppress this, but just claiming things without a shred of evidence isn't helping the discussion along.
TikTok is no better or worse than Facebook or Google. US is just mad it can't boss Tik Tok around like they can any other tech giant. Because TikTok has ties to the Chinese government, there's a national security concern about what information they collect and share with China.
The whole "save the children" angle is pure optics. These politicians couldn't give a rat's about it but they know the public is so fed up with "toxic" social media they're using the excuse that it's psychologically damaging to children to go after it.
The government never seems to place any burden on parenting. But when they're being left out of the spynet is only when they care.
It's not any worse, just that it likely works with the CCP as opposed to the NSA, and the US obviously considers that a threat.
I think it'd be more productive for the US Congress to regulate the online space and the (ab)use of people's data/identity regardless of where the company is based in than to downright ban foreign companies. The latter seems rather... un-American.
Because they're "not an American company" - so they make a great target.
Now what is an American company? Well, I don't really have a clue, companies certainly aren't patriotic citizens and we have no expectation of that even if they're entirely domestic... but once they're global? Well, then they can just jump their headquarters around to get the most advantageous tax laws and liability.
We should hold all social media companies to the same level of accountability because while TikTok might be openly cozy to the chinese government if you think any corporations are on the side of the American people I have a bridge to sell you.
This whole thing is so strange. People in the US were so concerned about Russia running ads for a few thousand dollars in 2016 during the elections but are now ok with TikTok being controlled by CCP?
As always, take every comment with a grain of salt.
Honestly, I think this is refreshing. If anything, it's an acknowledgement that the info gathered and shared by social media to their respective governments is indeed, very useful.
Sure, it might be hypocritical. But it's a win, either way.
For me I don't really care if they are better or worse, I'm just tired of Chinese companies milking the open the market while being protected in their own. If these companies want to participate in the other markets then they should lobby their government to open up more.
Basing on experience and facts I can only say that since TikTok is new and hasn't had many scandals yet, their privacy reviews and processes internally are not mature or not a priority yet compared to other FANG companies that have been burned by it.
And why should they prioritize it over growth?
I spoke to devs, and they didn't care at all about their privacy reviews.
I'm not a TikTok fan, but this behavior was the same as other FANG companies early days. Yet they are being treated different?
It’s very, very simple. So long as China continues to ban US social media companies and search engines, whatever reason they have for doing so is a valid reason for the US and other western countries to respond in kind and ban Chinese social media companies. Not just from a military or security standpoint but also an economic one.
If TikTok is “not a threat” then neither is Facebook and Google. End of story.
Is the pissy-fight back and forth between two world powers worth the 150M people that have gotten more useful news than we have in years; *and* the millions of small businesses that have been able to get off the ground due to TikTok's algorithm helping them find the right audience?
It's not that simple. China has laws that US social media/search engine companies are not willing to follow but AFAICT TikTok abides by every US law that exists.
One main reason that TikTok can be worse is subtle propaganda. There is a very subtle pro-Chinese bias on TikTok and that's beneficial for China in the long term. The more that your rival's population perceives you as a threat, the harder it is to compete against them.
In what other trade context would it be ok for one partner to block all access to their own market (Facebook, Twitter etc) whilst still enjoying full access to everybody else's? How is this remotely acceptable?
They're not bribing US politicians, which is why there is now unprecedented "bipartisan" support for banning TikTok, because we need to protect the children or not.
While privacy is an issue on TikTok, I would say the more concerning stuff is that they are actively curating speech: they frequently ban content critical of the CCP, promote pro-ccp messaging, and also sometimes they harass journalists using information that has a somewhat reasonable expectation of privacy. There is a suspicion that they bump up divisive content, but that's harder to prove since obviously Facebook and Google do this too. But douyin does the opposite, it bumps up non-divisive content.
I don't know how I didn't know this, but today I learned from nickdrom on TikTok that you can type in the name of anyone in congress to see which (social media) companies they invest in:
Is it any surprise that they want to ban the tool that not only is the biggest competitor for their investments - which pay them hundreds of millions of dollars - but also tells its users where to find the very corruption that they try so hard to cover up?
The obvious one is enforcement would be a political football; see for example the Trump presidency "emoluments" scandal vs. the whinging about Pelosi's investment performance. It'd never end and the quality of the candidates or decisions they make would stay the same.
Another is that it'd be unfair to politicians who think that market indexes are a bad idea.
This is a strange argument: I mean if TikTok were not owned by CCP and were a public company, I am sure a lot of folks in congress would have invested in it due to its size.
Big tech has ingratiated themselves with congress by hiring friends and family, donating liberally to political campaigns, and staying involved in Washington with think tanks.
In part, the campaign against Tiktok is a campaign for SF based big tech to hold the monopoly on people's attention. As a newer startup, Tiktok has not entrenched itself the way that other tech companies have in DC yet.
I don't know how I didn't know this, but today I learned from zackmorris on HN that you can type in the name of anyone in congress to see which (social media) companies they invest in:
So say they ban TikTok, and Apple and Google remove it from their app stores.
How do they stop people from using the TikTok website instead?
I've never used TikTok other than occasionally clicking a link that takes me to a video on their website, but from what I'm gleaning from a little Googling what using one of their mobile apps gives you really just one big difference:
• You can shoot video from within the app, and add music and do some editing, and upload to TikTok.
If you just use the web you can upload video, but it is up to you to find something to shoot it, add music, and edit.
So...not as convenient for the people creating the content since there will be more steps involving more separate applications, but it doesn't sound like the website will be much of a downgrade for people who just ant to watch.
Also, what happens in a year or two when Apple releases a new version of iOS that allows using third-party stores and side loading to comply with EU regulations? Do we think Apple is going to maintain a separate version of iOS for the EU and the rest of the world, or will they allow the third-party stores and side loading everywhere?
The convenience of making new content is everything to Tiktok. Tiktok is all about flipping through a constant stream of stuff and spending a very short amount of time viewing it. If users constantly see old videos when they scroll due to no updated content, Tiktok would pretty much die. The userbase does not have the attention span or long-form video culture of YouTube.
Would a separate short video making app work? Something that integrates filming short video, adding music, and editing, along with the ability to automatically upload to your TikTok account (and/or YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc accounts)?
I'm sure you're not the target audience of TikTok (which is probably a good thing).
> not as convenient for the people creating the content...
Yeah, and that little inconvenience is day and night. That's why TikTok got popular at the first place. Convenience. Pepople can always record videos and share them to others since digital camera is a thing.
That may have been critical to forming the network but not for maintaining it. As long as the consumer UX is good (which is a big assumption I have no idea about), the creators will do whatever they need to to reach that audience. You lose some at the margins but that's probably low-quality content anyway.
I think there's a lot more going on here than most people appreciate - imho, the BIG/REAL reason the US government wants TikTok gone is because of it's potency for propaganda - specifically, just regular people, American and global citizens, communicating with each other in a format that just so happens (by chance basically, but it makes sense in retrospect) to be WAAAAY better for effectively transmitting ideas from one human mind to another human mind.
It seems like this is "just" videos, but that's not necessarily correct - it is true that it "is videos", but "it's just videos" presumes that there is no noteworthy metaphysical pheomenon going on.....but if you are on TikTok, and got these congressional hearings into your feed (tons of my feed was yesterday, since I hearted every one that came up), seeing video after video of congress people OBVIOUSLY reading from a coordinated script, OBVIOUSLY lying/acting, the emperor OBVIOUSLY having no clothes.....it is surreal. Video after video of different congress people doing the same thing, literally putting on a performance, demonstrating that American politics IS IN FACT fake, a literal illusion / magic trick, unmistakably....this is DEVASTATING from a geopolitics perspective.
And in trying to put this genie back in the bottle, my feeling is that they may have shot themselves in the foot. What I have experienced is being experienced by millions of other people (lots have made videos mocking their politicians, but I don't think many people see through it as much as I, see my "Boiled Frog" reference above) - the cat is out of the bag. A MASSIVE exploit in the armour of the US regime has been revealed, analogous to Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star. Nothing so dramatic will happen here at least in the short run, but the idea is now out in the wild, to some degree. And that's why TikTok is so dangerous: it's ability to transmit ideas from the mind of one human being into the mind of another human being - this is The Way. Of course, "duh, that's 'just' communicating, get out of here with your conspiracy theories[1], etc etc etc", I've heard it all before. This is sub-perceptual heuristics not just perceiving reality, but generating reality. Now if THAT idea ever got out into the wild, they'd have even more trouble.
May you live in interesting times!
[1] One of the most potent remotely callable algorithms that has somehow ended up in the mind of most every single node in this system we're stuck in - one of many. It would be a real shame if people started to figure out how this system runs, if they somehow learned how to think outside of the invisible box that's been built around them. Humans are very much like ChatGPT, it can be observed, in massive quantities - people are going to start noticing things like this, and I think there is a very good chance the puzzle pieces will start to fall into place...and then maybe, the gig will finally be up. If citizens of all nations came to this realization more or less simultaneously, I think it could literally change the world. TikTok may not accomplish it, but ~~the~~ A path to it is now known. Even worse (for those running the show): these large language models are also revealing many interesting nuances about reality that were formerly very difficult if not impossible to see.
> If you just use the web you can upload video, but it is up to you to find something to shoot it, add music, and edit.
If you don't actually use it regularly then you don't know. Their in-app editor tools is best in class for rapid, convenient social media content (as compared to YouTube, Snapchat or Instagram).
There is a web interface to TikTok. For consuming TikTok it is not quite as fast and fluid as the app, but that's good enough to satisfy the non-creators using it as an entertainment medium.
Sure but the obsession regarding China is leaving everyone vulnerable and blind to the methods being utilized by everyone else. It's not as if TikTok is using some alien technology here that nobody else has access to.
Cambridge Analytica anyone? Did we all just forget? That wasn't even Chinese influence and still it had tremendous impact on the US (and how her citizens view each other).
The US is already influencing US mass psychology, but I guess people are more ok with being manipulated by people who were born in the same border as them, than by people who were born outside that border.
That's a legitimate concern. We've recently had examples of the US government influencing US mass psychology via Twitter, including examples where Twitter was asked to suppress information the government stated was factually correct.
The CCP is trash, and the US government is far better (it has elections, for one thing) but I suggest we should be concerned about any attempt to manipulate the populace.
Being a representative democracy, the USA's critical weakness is that it is ruled by stupid people that are voted in by the stupid people they represent. So yea, the US government is better but dumb, and it is vulnerable to misinformation and manipulation. Our global rivals know this. It shouldn't be a huge surprise that we're being (at best) pen-tested (and at worst) attacked through things like tiktok and troll farms.
Yes. At the moment I expect Facebook, Twitter, etc to be focused mainly on using the data they collect to drive engagement and serve more ads. I expect the US government to have relatively weak and ineffective information operations on those platforms because they don't own the platforms and are relatively inexperienced with internet scale information operations. I expect TikTok to be focused mainly on using the data they collect to drive engagement more effectively than previously feasible and serve information operations. I expect the Chinese government to have strong and effective information operations on that platform because in a real sense the government and by extension the Chinese Communist Party does own the platform and have large amounts of experience in internet scale information operations.
Agreed. The fact that 500+ mostly well-educated, privileged people in Congress can’t understand privacy on the internet suggests a systemic problem that is not only present in Congress.
Those 500+ members of Congress each have a staff of around 10 (if in the House) to 50 (if in the Senate) working to help draft write these policiess but we'd be paid peanuts ($50k/yr in a city where rent for a studio is $2-2.5k and paying for 6 years of student loans - undergrad+grad school). You ain't getting good talent if you ain't paying for it. Those of us who know shit leave for the Private Sector. In general from my time working on the Hill, actual relations between most Congressmembers in both parties are pretty congenial and drama free. It's the pay gap that actually effects policymaking.
Alternatively, the Federal Agencies (which do pay decently btw) end up implementing Policies and Directives on their own that tend to make sense. Congress is a laggard compared to unilateral action that Agencies and Regulators like the SEC, CISA, DoE, DoT, etc can take, but those actions are only bandaids because they can be rolled back when bosses are changed.
> 500+ mostly well-educated, privileged people in Congress can’t understand privacy on the internet suggests a systemic problem that is not only present in Congress
There is no national consensus on internet privacy. Most Americans simply don't care, certainly not enough to give up convenience. The minority who do are politically disengaged. To the degree there is consensus, it's on commons, e.g. national security.
WeChat (a far more pernicious threat) was also in the crosshairs but then they just forgot about it. This is all just a performance to make a show of "doing something". Domestic companies are doing the same manipulative invasion as the Chinese apps. Any regulation would hurt the surveillance capitalism business model.
Readit News
It's doable when you keep everything separate, only hire US citizens, add lots of locked doors, and put people in jail if they leak. I can't picture this working with data that's not considered classified.
I'm wondering if it's not about the data at all. It's about who gets to control the information space. They don't even have to delete information critical of China, just weigh it down so it's essentially never seen.
I think it makes sense for policies to discuss the foreign influence angle separately from the domestic influence angle. Further, it makes sense to sub-divide the foreign influence angle along certain dimensions, such as, generally friendly allies (like the British) versus adversarial powers (like China).
Dividing problems these ways makes the conversations easier to happen, and from a political perspective, legislation tends to happen with a scalpel rather than a knife.
People always seem to want to say "if X is a problem, why don't we talk about Y instead" - in this case, if data sharing is a problem, why don't we talk about the bigger problem? The issue when it comes to politics is that the system is almost by design resistant to big sweeping changes.
There is a lot of value in continuing to have conversations about privacy. About domestic privacy. About foreign privacy. And all the sub-divisions possible along those lines.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, especially in politics. Instead of seeing certain targeted privacy legislation (like potentially against TikTok) as bad, see it as part of a larger conversation and movement towards tougher privacy legislation. As public sentiment turns more and more towards privacy, we can continue to evolve other dimensions of the problem space - including domestic.
The concern is that although you live in Canada, US, Europe; you can still be "arrested" by Chinese police working in hidden police departments in the Canada, US, and Europe [2]. And TikTok will tell them where you are. From the second article: FBI director Christopher Wray told a US Senate hearing in November that attempts by China to set up a police presence on US soil "violates sovereignty and circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement cooperation processes".
[1] http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c30834/201806/483221713dac4f31bda7... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64909560
I'm genuinely trying to think of a good-faith argument for why Chinese tech firms are less trustworthy than American tech firms, but I honestly can't think of one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
I am not saying that those are true or that I agree with them, but those seem to be the typical arguments.
1. China banned Facebook after it refused to cooperate with law enforcement following the Urumqi riots. Google and others decided the cost of following censorship laws was too high compared to the return and decided to retreat. Other American tech giants like Microsoft, Apple and IBM have a presence in China. However unjust China's laws may be, there's a qualitative differences between applying it to all companies in the same way vs. what the US is attempting to do with TikTok.
2. From an American point of view, this strikes true. For the rest of the world there's hardly a difference. If any, the US has proved it is willing to enforce its will globally against non-citizens with all means possible (see fe. Julian Assange).
3. Youtubes algorithm is strongly driven by controversy, Instagram seems to be responsible for a large amount of body dismorphia and depression in young people. I'm all for more research and stricter policies to suppress this, but just claiming things without a shred of evidence isn't helping the discussion along.
I think it'd be more productive for the US Congress to regulate the online space and the (ab)use of people's data/identity regardless of where the company is based in than to downright ban foreign companies. The latter seems rather... un-American.
Now what is an American company? Well, I don't really have a clue, companies certainly aren't patriotic citizens and we have no expectation of that even if they're entirely domestic... but once they're global? Well, then they can just jump their headquarters around to get the most advantageous tax laws and liability.
We should hold all social media companies to the same level of accountability because while TikTok might be openly cozy to the chinese government if you think any corporations are on the side of the American people I have a bridge to sell you.
https://prosperousamerica.org/ccp-takes-board-seat-at-byteda...
This whole thing is so strange. People in the US were so concerned about Russia running ads for a few thousand dollars in 2016 during the elections but are now ok with TikTok being controlled by CCP?
Honestly, I think this is refreshing. If anything, it's an acknowledgement that the info gathered and shared by social media to their respective governments is indeed, very useful.
Sure, it might be hypocritical. But it's a win, either way.
If TikTok is “not a threat” then neither is Facebook and Google. End of story.
It's not that simple. China has laws that US social media/search engine companies are not willing to follow but AFAICT TikTok abides by every US law that exists.
Its just bizzare to know that China bans those companies yet US allows Chinese social media companies to run in US.
1 America is the superpower
2 they want to destroy any and all competition
When powers clash things happen. See WW1. At least war is unlikely since both sides have nukes.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/what-drives-high-profile-...
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/huawei-helped-create-tech...
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/22/1165249928/tiktok-congress-he...
Their head lobbyist (Michael Beckerman) was seated right behind the CEO during testimony. He leads their government relations office in DC.
https://www.capitoltrades.com
Is it any surprise that they want to ban the tool that not only is the biggest competitor for their investments - which pay them hundreds of millions of dollars - but also tells its users where to find the very corruption that they try so hard to cover up?
Has anyone made a credible argument for why top national leaders should be allowed to stock-pick?
(Rather than required to put any investments into total-market index funds, which is good enough for the little people.)
Another is that it'd be unfair to politicians who think that market indexes are a bad idea.
Do you want to try testing that feature out on the upper echelons of the CCP?
This isn't a feature of TikTok. Someone mentioned it on TikTok.
In part, the campaign against Tiktok is a campaign for SF based big tech to hold the monopoly on people's attention. As a newer startup, Tiktok has not entrenched itself the way that other tech companies have in DC yet.
https://www.capitoltrades.com
How do they stop people from using the TikTok website instead?
I've never used TikTok other than occasionally clicking a link that takes me to a video on their website, but from what I'm gleaning from a little Googling what using one of their mobile apps gives you really just one big difference:
• You can shoot video from within the app, and add music and do some editing, and upload to TikTok.
If you just use the web you can upload video, but it is up to you to find something to shoot it, add music, and edit.
So...not as convenient for the people creating the content since there will be more steps involving more separate applications, but it doesn't sound like the website will be much of a downgrade for people who just ant to watch.
Also, what happens in a year or two when Apple releases a new version of iOS that allows using third-party stores and side loading to comply with EU regulations? Do we think Apple is going to maintain a separate version of iOS for the EU and the rest of the world, or will they allow the third-party stores and side loading everywhere?
> not as convenient for the people creating the content...
Yeah, and that little inconvenience is day and night. That's why TikTok got popular at the first place. Convenience. Pepople can always record videos and share them to others since digital camera is a thing.
Plenty of governments do this for sites like the pirate bay... does the US do it for any sites right now?
It seems like this is "just" videos, but that's not necessarily correct - it is true that it "is videos", but "it's just videos" presumes that there is no noteworthy metaphysical pheomenon going on.....but if you are on TikTok, and got these congressional hearings into your feed (tons of my feed was yesterday, since I hearted every one that came up), seeing video after video of congress people OBVIOUSLY reading from a coordinated script, OBVIOUSLY lying/acting, the emperor OBVIOUSLY having no clothes.....it is surreal. Video after video of different congress people doing the same thing, literally putting on a performance, demonstrating that American politics IS IN FACT fake, a literal illusion / magic trick, unmistakably....this is DEVASTATING from a geopolitics perspective.
And in trying to put this genie back in the bottle, my feeling is that they may have shot themselves in the foot. What I have experienced is being experienced by millions of other people (lots have made videos mocking their politicians, but I don't think many people see through it as much as I, see my "Boiled Frog" reference above) - the cat is out of the bag. A MASSIVE exploit in the armour of the US regime has been revealed, analogous to Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star. Nothing so dramatic will happen here at least in the short run, but the idea is now out in the wild, to some degree. And that's why TikTok is so dangerous: it's ability to transmit ideas from the mind of one human being into the mind of another human being - this is The Way. Of course, "duh, that's 'just' communicating, get out of here with your conspiracy theories[1], etc etc etc", I've heard it all before. This is sub-perceptual heuristics not just perceiving reality, but generating reality. Now if THAT idea ever got out into the wild, they'd have even more trouble.
May you live in interesting times!
[1] One of the most potent remotely callable algorithms that has somehow ended up in the mind of most every single node in this system we're stuck in - one of many. It would be a real shame if people started to figure out how this system runs, if they somehow learned how to think outside of the invisible box that's been built around them. Humans are very much like ChatGPT, it can be observed, in massive quantities - people are going to start noticing things like this, and I think there is a very good chance the puzzle pieces will start to fall into place...and then maybe, the gig will finally be up. If citizens of all nations came to this realization more or less simultaneously, I think it could literally change the world. TikTok may not accomplish it, but ~~the~~ A path to it is now known. Even worse (for those running the show): these large language models are also revealing many interesting nuances about reality that were formerly very difficult if not impossible to see.
If you don't actually use it regularly then you don't know. Their in-app editor tools is best in class for rapid, convenient social media content (as compared to YouTube, Snapchat or Instagram).
https://themarkup.org/blacklight?url=www.washingtonpost.com
Everyone of these think they are the great champions of Humam rights and democracy but in reality all are bad
Cambridge Analytica anyone? Did we all just forget? That wasn't even Chinese influence and still it had tremendous impact on the US (and how her citizens view each other).
The CCP is trash, and the US government is far better (it has elections, for one thing) but I suggest we should be concerned about any attempt to manipulate the populace.
They just happened to have TikTok in the crosshairs because of the fear of China. The broken clock strikes again.
Alternatively, the Federal Agencies (which do pay decently btw) end up implementing Policies and Directives on their own that tend to make sense. Congress is a laggard compared to unilateral action that Agencies and Regulators like the SEC, CISA, DoE, DoT, etc can take, but those actions are only bandaids because they can be rolled back when bosses are changed.
There is no national consensus on internet privacy. Most Americans simply don't care, certainly not enough to give up convenience. The minority who do are politically disengaged. To the degree there is consensus, it's on commons, e.g. national security.