TikTok CEO appeals to TikTok users before US congress testimony | Hacker News Reader

TikTok CEO appeals to TikTok users before US congress testimony

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It won't happen, but I would like to see the CEO of TikTok ask every single one of the members of the Congressional panel to disclose how much they receive in campaign donations from Facebook, Google, and other Silicon Valley companies who are threatened by the success of TikTok.

I don't know much about the US system or even my own when it comes to donations and lobbying, but I would have assumed this information should be public? That's not the case?

It is public.

The CEO can easily find out and publish it now.

Campaign donations are not even necessary to introduce bias. The TikTok userbase skews heavily democratic and democrat candidates use it for campaigning far more effectively than republican candidates. So there is already some anti-TikTok bias simply by party affiliation.

FWIW, there's research that shows the opposite: https://www.inverse.com/input/culture/research-finds-tiktok-...

Which is why you should be wary of talking about “trends” on TikTok like they’re universal because it reflects your own tastes scary well.

Young people continue to not vote or donate to campaigns, so this is probably not a winning strategy

You have it backwards, groups that vote at high rates are basically a lost cause because the name of the game isn’t to get anyone to switch sides but to mobilize your base. People who self-identify as independent voters are basically noise.

Any group with a 100% rate of voting is a group you don’t even have to bother to appeal to. They’re locked in. Your avenue for growth is populations that have low turn out which is why a bunch of republicans threw a hissyfit over Gen Z during the midterms and proposed legislation to raise the voting age.

People who identify as independent voter make up a growing part of the electorate.

In some one-party states, “independent” is effectively the opposition.

The problem is that Independents aren't actually independent. They strongly identify as neither Democrat or Republican, but they consistently support one or the other.

80% of Independents identify as leaning Democrat or Republican. Independents who identify as Democrat-leaning are just as likely as regular Democrats to hate the Republican party, and visa-versa.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/03/14/political-in...

100% agree that independents are not "independent" but in the US system there are only two viable parties (by design, apparently) so you have to vote for one of the parties or you lose any agency whatsoever (the US doesn't have coalition governments like the UK or Canada).

Agreed, but I'd expect a real independent to be less partisan than a party supporter. They would do things like split the ticket, for example.

Fair, but it's not always easy in "winner take all" politics like in the US.

Also, I am not sure that American voters (at least) are actually very educated in issues, or candidates.

Why should the CCP be allowed to operate such a large company in the US? Makes zero sense.

Perhaps if a US or EU company could operate independently in China it would be fine. But they can't and therefore the US possibly should restrict their function (for example, force them to merge with a US entity to operate here, similar to what China does).

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