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cookingboy t1_jcgd81f wrote

Reply to comment by Vdawgp in WSJ News Exclusive | U.S. Threatens Ban if TikTok’s Chinese Owners Don’t Sell Stakes by TheAngelMutants

> We’ve already seen examples during the Hong Kong protests of different videos showing up based on if you searched about demonstrations in English vs. Chinese characters

You serious? You can search for that in English and Chinese on YouTube and you'd get very different results. The hashtags and titles are in different languages dude.

>we should not be comfortable allowing the CCP to easily manipulating what we’re paying attention to.

That's literally China's "excuse" for banning social media from the U.S. "Malicious foreign influence" as they call it, which is par for the course for a country with no freedom of speech.

So far no one has seen any evidence that TikTok uses its algorithm for any political manipulation (in fact you can drown yourself in anti-CCP propaganda on there if you want), so start building our version of the Great Firewall when all the accusations are just things that "could" happen is very concerning.

What's next? Start banning more apps and websites from countries that are not U.S. allies?

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Vdawgp t1_jcgy4s0 wrote

First off, there is proof of algorithm manipulation.

Second, I don’t understand how bringing up China banning Western social media is an argument against banning TikTok in its current state. Why are we playing to a double standard where they can ban our apps but we can’t ban theirs? If China does this because they believe Western social media would manipulate its contests to cause unrest, then they’d have no issue using TikTok to do the same and we shouldn’t allow it.

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cookingboy t1_jchqc02 wrote

> Why are we playing to a double standard

Because I’d very much for us to have a different standard than China when it comes to personal freedom and free speech.

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Vdawgp t1_jchu9vo wrote

This isn’t a personal freedom or free speech issue, it’s a data and influence issue. If China doesn’t trust Western social networks having their citizen’s data or subject to their algorithms, than we shouldn’t trust the CCP’s either. We wouldn’t have allowed the USSR to buy NBC, and I fail to see how this is any different.

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cookingboy t1_jchvgyz wrote

> This isn’t a personal freedom or free speech issue, it’s a data and influence issue.

It’s both.

> If China doesn’t trust Western social networks having their citizen’s data or subject to their algorithms

That’s what China says. In reality they want a censored internet for their citizens and full control of what their people sees online. US is heading down the same path once we start banning apps and websites from countries that are not US allies.

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Vdawgp t1_jci4tas wrote

Yeah I’m sure they couldn’t censor their internet if they allowed Google, what an asinine argument lol

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cookingboy t1_jcigwxg wrote

Of course they couldn't. How could they censor Google without cooperation from the company or a blanket ban? Do you know how internet works???

In fact China's law requires American companies to have server inside China and cooperate with Chinese government for censorship. Google and Facebook didn't wanna play ball so they were blocked. Apple and Microsoft did play ball which is why iMessage and FaceTime and iCloud and LinkedIn and Skype and Bing are allowed. I bet you didn't know that.

It requires cooperation on the companys' part. Without that you can't selectively censor content.

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Vdawgp t1_jcinwb7 wrote

Got it, so you’re resorting to technicalities. Obviously the version of Google that would be in China would have to play ball with the CCP and follow their rules on things like data governance and local control. So I ask again, if China is going to treat Western companies as adversaries on this topic, why should we lowering our walls and allow them to export authoritarianism through TikTok? It’s pretty simple; if TikTok is willing to sell off their US arm so that it’s not required to follow Chinese law (either implicit or explicit), than it should be banned for both the data and influence issues.

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cookingboy t1_jcip4bk wrote

> China is going to treat Western companies as adversaries

But they don’t? They allow all western companies as long as they follow Chinese laws, the same laws that Chinese companies have to follow themselves. They’ve never banned a tech company just for being American.

Did you know more than 20% of Apple’s revenue is from China? Does that sound like a country that treat Western companies as adversaries?

I am for the solution to make US data privacy and political influence laws that all tech companies have to follow, foreign or domestic. But that wouldn’t happen since this whole thing started because of Meta’s lobbying in the first place.

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Vdawgp t1_jcitb9n wrote

I respect and agree with the argument that we need comprehensive data protection and algorithm transparency laws. That makes sense.

My fundamental disagreement with you is the level of concern about TikTok specifically. The fact is that ByteDance has to, whether willingly or unwillingly, do what the CCP asks. There is evidence of algorithm manipulation. The CCP does have those levers. We’ve seen ByteDance work with the CCP very openly. As Ben Thompson says, China is using their access to push their ideals. And as Matt Yglesias says, allowing TikTok would be no different from the US allowing the Soviets to buy NBC during the Cold War.

For me banning or forcing TikTok to divest is a five alarm fire we have to take care of, while comprehensive user protection laws are the asbestos in the walls of the house next door that probably should’ve been removed a while ago, but not the main concern with the fire going.

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cookingboy t1_jciw9ku wrote

> We’ve seen ByteDance work with the CCP very openly. As Ben Thompson says, China is using their access to push their ideals.

A lot of people say a lot of things these days when it comes to China. But at the end of the day even the US government has not presented any concrete proof as to TikTok’s collaboration with the CCP.

> allowing TikTok would be no different from the US allowing the Soviets to buy NBC during the Cold War.

Well I fundamentally disagree. The US and China are not enemies at the moment and we aren’t even in a Cold War, and the economic ties and relationship between two countries are very different from what the US had with Soviet Union. We have a lot of business interest in them as they do in us. The trade between the two countries just reached all time high: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/07/trade-china-relations-economies-00081301

You think there is a fire going on meanwhile even the best evidence brought up by the most staunch anti-China politicians so far is “there could be a fire”.

I personally think this is just the new Red Scare and we are trending toward a new era of McCarthyism. And of course SnapChat and Meta have been funding this whole effort, just look at their stock price in the past few days.

Either way I appreciate your level headed discussion, we may disagree but it’s more pleasant than most discussions I’ve on Reddit when it comes to this topic.

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