The way they're so successful at the latter is by being really good at the former. If you've used it, they've (at minimum) built a psychographic profile used for content and ad targeting.
1 week before an American election? 80 million Americans start being bombarded with "Why you should vote how the CCP wants you to vote" videos. That is a national security threat.
Edit: Changed "20% of Americans" to "80 million Americans"
What kind of nonsense comparison is this good lord.
"Facebook says it can sway elections after all—for a price"
https://qz.com/922436/facebook-says-it-can-sway-elections-af...
Of course, it wouldn't be that dumb and obvious. If they were smart, they'd pick compelling organic content that aligns with their agenda, and amplify that for susceptible audiences (e.g. if they want to hurt Biden, they might take best videos criticizing him for allowing more oil drilling, and then un-organically push that content to users with environmentalist leanings).
Then lets make sure that domestic political groups can't do this through facebook, instagram and reddit.
> Then lets make sure that domestic political groups can't do this through facebook, instagram and reddit.
Except that in one case, it's a foreign actor interfering with the domestic political process, and in the other it's a domestic actor arguably exercising their first amendment rights.
International corporations aren't domestic.
Corporations aren't people.
Boosting propoganda, censoring, and surveilling whilst acting as a utility and forcing people to sign up to participate in society is neither free nor speech.
Meta and google don't just abuse americans
They are manipulating the population and arguably infringing on rights that all free individuals should have (had the bill of rights not been written before mass media and the internet).
The First Amendment is broken, unfortunately, and the result is that a fire hose of paid, anonymous lies drowns out hard-won truths.
Don't get me wrong - the Framers were brilliant men, but two hundred years have gone by.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact. If it protected foreign subversion as a constitutional right, it would be such a pact, therefore it doesn't.
You're over thinking it. All you need to do is put your thumb on the scale. Creating chaos/division is far easier and often more effective than directed influence.
Honestly I think that's why propaganda is so effective. People think of it as "Uncle Sam needs you to join the war effort" (which is propaganda) but it is more commonly "all politicians are corrupt". Which may even be true or mostly true. But the effect of such a claim is a distrust in your entire society. That's pretty effective propaganda and gets people to fight instead of working collectively.
Rinse and repeat, slowly as culture changes. Over many years, decades.
One generation later, the then-normalized world view can be diametrically opposed to what it had been for centuries, in many regards, even core aspects.
Such socio-cultural phenomena rarely last beyond 3-ish generations in history, though. More like 25 years. Usually the whole thing collapses under its own contradictions (not without friction, sometimes violent). But beyond a certain time under the spell, and/or if experienced too young, most people don't come back (not fully, not really). To this day you may hear old US politicians still believe old US propaganda (now all but officially acknowledged as such) that they simply can't shake off their world view.
It's one of those things that, when pushed too far for too long, society only moves on once most people who lived under that era have passed away, and new unaffected generations take over.
> is that TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate.
How does TikTok determine which political agenda is appropriate?
Maybe there is a misconception to this? Foreign adversaries, such as Russia and CCP (or whoever your respective adversary is), are not so much trying to get people to vote/act a specific way as much as they are trying to 1) create chaos and 2) increase distrust in a population's trust in their government (note, this is not US centric). (some propaganda campaigns can be to get specific reactions, but chaos is much easier to create than specific actions)
If we look at Russian influence campaigns we actually see that in several cases they organized both a protest to something and a corresponding counter protest. The thing is that if you can create chaos in your adversaries' political environment then they are not effectively able to organize and pursue collective advancements. This is exacerbated by creating distrust in one's leadership. That creates more chaos and again lessens the ability to collectively organize.
It is also important to recognize that effective propaganda doesn't create issues out of thin air. Instead you are placing your thumb on the scale. Creating mountains out of mole hills is a long tested and successful form of propaganda. After all, the devil tells half truths. (see misinformation vs disinformation vs malinformation. Propaganda often uses malinformation)
Sum total, zero.