India banned TikTok and a whole host of other Chinese apps and after a few days of moaning they moved completely on. So the evidence indicates that no one will actually care. And TikTok is even less sticky than say Twitter. TikTok isn’t about the relationship graph you painstakingly built. It’s about the algorithm and the FYP it populates. That can be recreated instantly. Moving away from Twitter was hard because one had to painstakingly recreate their followers list. But moving from TikTok is trivial as long as the new alternative provides enough automatically delivered entertainment.
This is scary because it also means that every foreign app can be banned and it will be fine in no time.
Foreign in UK, France etc means Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
The social graph isn’t a big deal if can be forced. People can just find the same people on the new thing. A few days of pain and its all fine, people who get locked out of their accounts or get banned do it all the time.
It’s totally insane that China can ban all American social networks on security concerns and ban all kinds of just basic speech on their apps, but banning a Chinese social network is so controversial.
Sure but what would that have to do with this action here?
TikTok isn’t being banned because of free speech or not but because the usage of their algorithms allows the app to influence how Americans think about different issues. China has recognized this as a threat and as such has banned foreign adversary social media companies from operating within its borders.
Likewise the United States has recognized that this is a serious threat as well and has sought to do the same.
Both countries claim to want to defend their systems of governments so it stands to reason they are just taking reciprocal actions here.
The “free speech” angle is just Chinese propaganda. We stop businesses from operating in the United States all the time and sanction companies and stop them from doing business within our financial network all the time. TikTok is just some random company and we can stop it from doing business here. Free speech isn’t a meaningful discussion point here.
No we don't - and we stop free associations all the time. I can't call up my non-existent buddies in Russia and say hey you guys need weapons? Well I'll sell them to you. We ban NVIDIA from selling advanced chips to China or North Korea. We prohibit US citizens from bribing officials in countries like Mexico for permits.
> Moreover it seems like security theater.
Meh. At a minimum it's just an economic reciprocation. If China doesn't allow our wildly successful social media companies to operate in China, we can as a matter of trade decide to stop their wildly successful social media company from operating in our country.
> but because the usage of their algorithms allows the app to influence how Americans think about different issues
Is that the case or is that just assumed what the government means when they say issues of national security? I thought they meant our devices could be hacked by malicious code in TikTok apps.
> TikTok isn’t being banned because of free speech or not but because the usage of their algorithms allows the app to influence how Americans think about different issues. China has recognized this as a threat and as such has banned foreign adversary social media companies from operating within its borders.
The “personal freedom” part would be most immediately salient here.
Free speech wouldn’t apply if the app wasn’t in use already. But so many millions of Americans use the app already that it easily is about free speech as well.
The problem with this argument is that you are putting TikTok on a pedestal.
The US (and every country on the planet) has rules and regulations around who can do business in their country and who their citizens may do business with.
If you want to argue that the U.S. shouldn't be able to prohibit its citizens from doing business with TikTok you should spend some time generalizing that argument and figuring out a good reason we shouldn't be able to prohibit Americans from selling weapons to Russia, or allowing Russian companies to set up manufacturing facilities in the United States to build weapons to send back to Russia. (or any other scenario you want to make up)
"Free speech" is not a good argument here. TikTok isn't a "free speech" platform. It's just a random company selling products and services in the United States.
I can't get over how widely accepted this paternalistic thinking is. "People might be viewing and think in the wrong things and must be stopped!" It's textbook censorship, with a bunch of legal tap dancing to attempt to justify it against the obvious unconstitutionality.
We can hardly claim to have a democracy while acting like the population at large needs to be controlled in such a way. It's contradictory.
As a society we just get to decide that. We can simultaneously be a democracy and also prohibit people from doing things. We can even be hypocritical. It's great!
There's nothing contradictory about it because living in a democratic society doesn't mean that you have free reign to do anything that you want.
It's freedom of speech until you say bad stuff about Americas 51st state in the middle east that's killing on average 5 children every day with our tax money.
That was not the freedom of speech your supposed to hear on social media. That's why it's a threat. Be like Twitter and ban those accounts instead.
China banned things for entirely different reasons. They want to control the information they don't like. TikTok is banned so that Chinese government can't do the same thing here and influence a very large percentage of the US population. Not saying they're doing it now, but in general I agree that the potential threat is there. You can already see how big is the social media influence on people, on their political views etc.
> You can already see how big is the social media influence on people, on their political views etc.
If that is the reason for the ban, namely that American citizens cannot discern propaganda from factual information themselves and as a result must have their information shaped for them to achieve or avoid certain political outcomes, then that is quite literally the same reason China has for controlling the information space
No offense but you did basically just say the same thing twice, just with a bit of a patriot-act touch up. China doesn't just ban things they "don't like". What they don't like is exactly what you just lined out
Arguing for individual humans to have freedom of speech to express their views is one thing, arguing for mega-corporations (look at the valuation estimates for Tiktok) to have freedom of speech for profit is quite another.
The more significant issue is that this is a bill of attainder. The fact that this was prima facia rejected by the courts is an indication that the NatSec state has corroded every branch of government, and we have a zombie government.
That is like saying we have freedom of speech but it doesn't apply if you are wealthy enough to afford a printing press. It is just a sleight of hand to avoid saying "we really don't".
Is it really controversial? Maybe there’s just a vocal minority but most people I know simply do not care… granted, I don’t hang out with many young ppl so there’s that..
I dunno, it feels pretty normal to be upset when a government which ostensibly represents me does something that I feel is actively against my interests.
I don't think that you have to decry every horrible thing in the world to be upset when folks do things that you don't like to you.
According to the youth, it's more about a government censoring what speech their citizens can see. The CCP does it, sure. But America doing it feels new.
I'm not sure it's the right thing to ban TikTok, but I'm not surprised people aren't protesting in the streets. My feeling is that most people are addicted to these apps, not using them for the utility or pleasure they bring. These users have a deep down sense that they'd be better off without these apps. Instagram won't be banned, but if it were I think there might be a similar non-reaction.
That doesn't characterize me or any of the folks I know who use the app.
I know what it feels like to be addicted- I used to drink quite heavily and often.
Why are you theorizing about people you don't know engaging in an activity which is foreign to you?
Can you state some of your media consumption preferences so we can deconstruct them and find their problematic aspects via a struggle session? If you're not up for that, why do you feel like it's okay to try and take that line with other adults?
Not many people would protest a cigarette ban because the effects of smoking are very visible.
Not many people will protest a TikTok ban because it's largely happening to someone else and not very many people care about issues of free speech, as long as it's not happening to them.
>My feeling is that most people are addicted to these apps, not using them for the utility or pleasure they bring.
What if most people aren't addicted to them, and do simply find them useful and entertaining, and the hyperbole and discourse about how dangerous and addictive social media and "algorithms" are is a means to manufacture consent for the government regulating and controlling free speech?
What if it's a bigger problem that all the government has to do is gesture vaguely in the direction of China and many people will just roll over?
"Everyone’s joining 小紅書 and getting fully Xi-pilled."
This shows that seo-speedwagon is opposed to mainland China. Writing the name in traditional characters, which are used in Taiwan, is another barb of seo-speedwagon against mainland China and its government.
Imagine thinking the U.S. govt and corporate overlords are terrible because they’re banning TikTok and getting back at them by going to a Chinese app. China, the country which has a literal firewall preventing their people from getting information that isn’t vetted, bans nearly every external app because they don’t have control over it, and most ironically, never allowed TikTok, whose banning you think makes the U.S. govt terrible, in China in the first place.
It’s hilarious that all these Redpillers are going on about how they can now communicate with and learn from the Chinese people they’re meeting on Red Book without ever considering why they couldn’t meet those Chinese people on Tik Tok in the first place and coming to the conclusion that this shows that it was the U.S. govt that was bad…
Yeah, the lack of logical thinking in this one instance and your response to it only adds to the evidence that your generation is cooked.
1) the novelty of talking to entirely new people, which is a relative rarity since the early, heady days of MySpace when social media was new and gardens felt much less walled. For Gen Z, it might actually be a first given their average age; or
2) how the lives of average people compare to theirs and compare to their prior notions of what they thought life was like
These seem to go both ways btw, e.g. Chinese people being amazed that we really do need to pay for ambulance rides and that it’s not just govt propaganda. People are going where interesting things are happening, it’s plain and simple.
> These seem to go both ways btw, e.g. Chinese people being amazed that we really do need to pay for ambulance rides and that it’s not just govt propaganda. People are going where interesting things are happening, it’s plain and simple.
Sadly, since Rednote is monitored and censored by the CCP, the novelty and depth of those 'wow, your country is really like that?' conversations is rather one-sided. You can bet if the conversation is going to paint a country in a negative light (e.g. Ambulance rides), that country probably isn't going to be China.
Great point! I hope all those Americans who can't afford basic necessities in this so-called 'developed country' can take solace in the existence of Chinese censorship. Now they can even take solace in the expansion of American censorship!
In the end, what was the real revolutionary propaganda that the American establishment is afraid of? True cost of living statistics.
An American and a Chinese citizen are having a discussion on Rednote about freedom in their respective countries. The American proudly says:
"In America, we have true freedom! I can stand in front of the White House and shout, 'I don’t like the President!' and nothing will happen to me."
The Chinese citizen thoughtfully replies:
"We have the same freedom in China. I can stand in front of Tiananmen Square and shout, 'I don’t like the American President!' and nothing will happen to me either."
A Russian and an American get on a plane in Moscow and get to talking. The Russian says he works for the Kremlin and he's on his way to go learn American propaganda techniques.
"American propaganda techniques? Sounds conspiratorial" says the American.
Three paragraphs of non-sequiturs. Yeah they are taking revenge on their own government because it’s their own government which is governing the country they live in. “But what about China” doesn’t matter since they don’t live in China and they don’t plan to move to China.
They want to use an app. These geopolitical-ideological fault-lines doesn’t matter.
Because that’s all you know! You are so myopically focused on every shitty thing that the US has ever done that you’ll believe anything that disparages the US, even when it comes from a foreign power trying to undermine you. For instance:
Because of the horrible UX of opening up this URL and literally the entire screen being covered by pop-ups... What the actual hell... Porn/warez sites in the 00s were better than this...
I think TikTok is a negative influence on society, but not for any reasons that have to do with China really. I'd be much happier if the gov took strict actions on social media generally.
It doesn't really make much "sense," of course. I'm just day dreaming. I find the USA gov and the Chinese gov to both be pretty evil. The other social media gets to stay, though, because they are all in the USA.
Obviously banning TikTok or other social media gets into free speech violation territory. But if I could just wave my magic wand and make things that I think are bad go away, I'd ban the whole lot
Ever since I started using social media platforms, some 22 years ago, I've been through six platforms. Those platforms were once teeming with life, but eventually got shut down, bought out, or just died a natural death. Every time people were up in arms, but eventually migrated somewhere else.
But just because people migrate somewhere else doesn't mean they don't miss those old platforms. Many of these old platforms had unique aspects that were never quite replicated in later platforms
Member berries when the internet was hip and cool and UUCP was the only game in town, and everyone was a wonderfully insightful ray if sunshine? Yeah, me neither.
Either it is a guilty pleasure and you are secretly relieved that the temptation is being removed.
Or prolonged use of the service has turned you into an apathetic apolitical blob of mindless jelly with no agency and no energy to effect change on your environment.
Apolitical is an interesting choice of description. My understanding is that the real motivation of banning TikTok is precisely the political influence it wields on the youth’s malleable minds.
It’s in American security interests to limit CCP’s access to American location data and ability to pipe propaganda into our eyeballs.
But setting the ban to go into effect one day before the next President takes office is brazenly political and undermines the actually-important problem that TikTok represents.
When Twitter got weird, Bluesky was ready to come in as a total clone and succeed. I’m sure there are a dozen companies ready to make their case that they should replace TT…it’ll be fine.
The argument to ban TikTok is for trade reciprocity reasons. Reels and Youtube Shorts are banned there, so we should ban TikTok here. Just like how if Germany banned Fords and Chevys from being sold, we should similarly ban VWs and Audis.
That they say this is for "National Security" gives the game away.
> I’ve argued that TikTok’s biggest wounds have been self-inflicted — snooping on journalists, restricting transparency, obscuring its ties to China — and that it developed a trust deficit with U.S. lawmakers that would be hard to overcome. But I don’t think that’s why most American TikTok users aren’t protesting a ban, either.
Guy is ideologically opposed to TikTok and is reasoning backwards. I mean what’s more emblematic of that than writing a thinkpiece on a what-if?
> It’s probably wishful thinking to believe that if the ban takes effect, millions of screen-addicted TikTok users will start reading “Ulysses” and taking long walks in their spare time. But maybe it’s reasonable to see the shrugs surrounding TikTok’s disappearance and wonder if, after years of giving that app our attention, we’re ready to invest it somewhere else.
Buddhist monks of old would apparently position a novice in a cave by themselves, giving them nothing else to do than to meditate. He cannot possibly believe that the modern world minus Tik Tok is conducive to such apparently wholesome habits. There are dozens of alternatives in queue waiting to become the next pseudo-addiction.
Foreign in UK, France etc means Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
The social graph isn’t a big deal if can be forced. People can just find the same people on the new thing. A few days of pain and its all fine, people who get locked out of their accounts or get banned do it all the time.
TikTok isn’t being banned because of free speech or not but because the usage of their algorithms allows the app to influence how Americans think about different issues. China has recognized this as a threat and as such has banned foreign adversary social media companies from operating within its borders.
Likewise the United States has recognized that this is a serious threat as well and has sought to do the same.
Both countries claim to want to defend their systems of governments so it stands to reason they are just taking reciprocal actions here.
The “free speech” angle is just Chinese propaganda. We stop businesses from operating in the United States all the time and sanction companies and stop them from doing business within our financial network all the time. TikTok is just some random company and we can stop it from doing business here. Free speech isn’t a meaningful discussion point here.
Moreover it seems like security theater.
> Moreover it seems like security theater.
Meh. At a minimum it's just an economic reciprocation. If China doesn't allow our wildly successful social media companies to operate in China, we can as a matter of trade decide to stop their wildly successful social media company from operating in our country.
Which, if true, means that the US has been influencing the rest of the world for the past 20 years through all the other social networks.
Is that the case or is that just assumed what the government means when they say issues of national security? I thought they meant our devices could be hacked by malicious code in TikTok apps.
The “personal freedom” part would be most immediately salient here.
Free speech wouldn’t apply if the app wasn’t in use already. But so many millions of Americans use the app already that it easily is about free speech as well.
The US (and every country on the planet) has rules and regulations around who can do business in their country and who their citizens may do business with.
If you want to argue that the U.S. shouldn't be able to prohibit its citizens from doing business with TikTok you should spend some time generalizing that argument and figuring out a good reason we shouldn't be able to prohibit Americans from selling weapons to Russia, or allowing Russian companies to set up manufacturing facilities in the United States to build weapons to send back to Russia. (or any other scenario you want to make up)
"Free speech" is not a good argument here. TikTok isn't a "free speech" platform. It's just a random company selling products and services in the United States.
We can hardly claim to have a democracy while acting like the population at large needs to be controlled in such a way. It's contradictory.
There's nothing contradictory about it because living in a democratic society doesn't mean that you have free reign to do anything that you want.
If Country A bans imports from Country B, it's entirely reasonable to respond in kind.
China infringing on the inalienable rights of Chinese citizens is not a source of strength. It's weakness. It hurts China.
Responding in kind is me responding to my neighbors fire by dousing the living room with gasoline and lighting a match.
That was not the freedom of speech your supposed to hear on social media. That's why it's a threat. Be like Twitter and ban those accounts instead.
If that is the reason for the ban, namely that American citizens cannot discern propaganda from factual information themselves and as a result must have their information shaped for them to achieve or avoid certain political outcomes, then that is quite literally the same reason China has for controlling the information space
No offense but you did basically just say the same thing twice, just with a bit of a patriot-act touch up. China doesn't just ban things they "don't like". What they don't like is exactly what you just lined out
The more significant issue is that this is a bill of attainder. The fact that this was prima facia rejected by the courts is an indication that the NatSec state has corroded every branch of government, and we have a zombie government.
The issue here isn't free speech, but control over what content is promoted, unless you think the CCP has the right to free speech in the US.
It would not be OK, but not because it is China. It would not be OK because it is not OK for anyone to do that.
Maybe Washington should figure out a way to make fewer "Foreign adversaries" so it doesn't have to subvert the fundamental rights of its citizens.
I don't think that you have to decry every horrible thing in the world to be upset when folks do things that you don't like to you.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea that something that is normal in an authoritarian society is verboten and sacrilegious in a Democracy.
I know what it feels like to be addicted- I used to drink quite heavily and often.
Why are you theorizing about people you don't know engaging in an activity which is foreign to you?
Can you state some of your media consumption preferences so we can deconstruct them and find their problematic aspects via a struggle session? If you're not up for that, why do you feel like it's okay to try and take that line with other adults?
...I find it interesting to think about whether using something due to addiction means you wouldn't protest if it's forcibly taken away.
In other words, I wonder if people would protest if cigarettes were banned.
Not many people will protest a TikTok ban because it's largely happening to someone else and not very many people care about issues of free speech, as long as it's not happening to them.
What if most people aren't addicted to them, and do simply find them useful and entertaining, and the hyperbole and discourse about how dangerous and addictive social media and "algorithms" are is a means to manufacture consent for the government regulating and controlling free speech?
What if it's a bigger problem that all the government has to do is gesture vaguely in the direction of China and many people will just roll over?
seo-speedwagon wrote (emphasis mine):
"Everyone’s joining 小紅書 and getting fully Xi-pilled."
This shows that seo-speedwagon is opposed to mainland China. Writing the name in traditional characters, which are used in Taiwan, is another barb of seo-speedwagon against mainland China and its government.
Absolute insufferable.
REDNote.
But also I care a lot less about the CCP because they have very little impact on my day to day
It’s hilarious that all these Redpillers are going on about how they can now communicate with and learn from the Chinese people they’re meeting on Red Book without ever considering why they couldn’t meet those Chinese people on Tik Tok in the first place and coming to the conclusion that this shows that it was the U.S. govt that was bad…
Yeah, the lack of logical thinking in this one instance and your response to it only adds to the evidence that your generation is cooked.
1) the novelty of talking to entirely new people, which is a relative rarity since the early, heady days of MySpace when social media was new and gardens felt much less walled. For Gen Z, it might actually be a first given their average age; or
2) how the lives of average people compare to theirs and compare to their prior notions of what they thought life was like
These seem to go both ways btw, e.g. Chinese people being amazed that we really do need to pay for ambulance rides and that it’s not just govt propaganda. People are going where interesting things are happening, it’s plain and simple.
Sadly, since Rednote is monitored and censored by the CCP, the novelty and depth of those 'wow, your country is really like that?' conversations is rather one-sided. You can bet if the conversation is going to paint a country in a negative light (e.g. Ambulance rides), that country probably isn't going to be China.
In the end, what was the real revolutionary propaganda that the American establishment is afraid of? True cost of living statistics.
That viral post is incorrect! Ambulance rides cost money in China! You are not immune to propaganda!
"In America, we have true freedom! I can stand in front of the White House and shout, 'I don’t like the President!' and nothing will happen to me."
The Chinese citizen thoughtfully replies:
"We have the same freedom in China. I can stand in front of Tiananmen Square and shout, 'I don’t like the American President!' and nothing will happen to me either."
if its looking like it wont be they gun you down. see: occupy wall st., unionization efforts
"American propaganda techniques? Sounds conspiratorial" says the American.
"Exactly," the Russian replies.
It's spite. Obviously. The point isn't that the CCP is better.
They want to use an app. These geopolitical-ideological fault-lines doesn’t matter.
https://x.com/OrganizerMemes/status/1879723864936370347#m Guess what! You also have to pay for an ambulance in China!
https://x.com/Jingjing_Li/status/1880176802993434698#m Wrong. Americans spend about 12% of their income on groceries and work less than the Chinese on average.
You are not immune to propaganda.
Because of the horrible UX of opening up this URL and literally the entire screen being covered by pop-ups... What the actual hell... Porn/warez sites in the 00s were better than this...
It doesn't really make much "sense," of course. I'm just day dreaming. I find the USA gov and the Chinese gov to both be pretty evil. The other social media gets to stay, though, because they are all in the USA.
Obviously banning TikTok or other social media gets into free speech violation territory. But if I could just wave my magic wand and make things that I think are bad go away, I'd ban the whole lot
And for two of the biggest social media companies specifically, they'd get to stay anyway because they're paying off the POTUS.
Is that the case though?
People will use something else.
Billions of humans have managed to live out their lives without short form video and will be OK
This 102 year old American veteran who fought in WW2 sure will miss it.
It’s in American security interests to limit CCP’s access to American location data and ability to pipe propaganda into our eyeballs.
But setting the ban to go into effect one day before the next President takes office is brazenly political and undermines the actually-important problem that TikTok represents.
When Twitter got weird, Bluesky was ready to come in as a total clone and succeed. I’m sure there are a dozen companies ready to make their case that they should replace TT…it’ll be fine.
That they say this is for "National Security" gives the game away.
every car app and toaster sells that stuff in the free market
propaganda is the point- or as importantly, the inability to hush or neuter 'anti-american' viewpoints
US govt has propaganda too: schools are now required to teach that "1,500,000,000 people suffer under communism"
Guy is ideologically opposed to TikTok and is reasoning backwards. I mean what’s more emblematic of that than writing a thinkpiece on a what-if?
> It’s probably wishful thinking to believe that if the ban takes effect, millions of screen-addicted TikTok users will start reading “Ulysses” and taking long walks in their spare time. But maybe it’s reasonable to see the shrugs surrounding TikTok’s disappearance and wonder if, after years of giving that app our attention, we’re ready to invest it somewhere else.
Buddhist monks of old would apparently position a novice in a cave by themselves, giving them nothing else to do than to meditate. He cannot possibly believe that the modern world minus Tik Tok is conducive to such apparently wholesome habits. There are dozens of alternatives in queue waiting to become the next pseudo-addiction.
I also think not so many people will miss TikTok-ers.