TikTok is a threat. So is the rest of Big Tech | Hacker News Reader

TikTok is a threat. So is the rest of Big Tech

techoversight.org

50 pointsrntn63 comments

Here’s how you fix the web, protect the children and ruin the economy at the same time: make online advertising to children illegal, full stop.

This does (at least) three things:

1.) Drives down the value of minors’ attention to zero, 2.) Forces all websites to do an age check if they want to advertise, 3.) Obliterates the influencer scheme because they can’t verify the age of their followers

This would significantly diminish the value of operating platforms that derive value from the attention of minors. It also allows websites to continue to operate for adults, who we should all agree are obligated to make their own choices about what (legal) content they’re allowed to consume.

For privacy, you'll want to decouple the identity that is being age-checked from the destination address & content.

Why would it ruin the economy? It would in theory kill any company that makes money from advertising to and exploiting children attention, and that is a good thing.

The rest of the world will be fine.

Parent poster and many in their peer group would lose their jobs. It would ruin their economy. The rest of the world will be better off.

If children-targeted advertising is a big enough problem to relate it had to be driving a lot of value. Value that funds jobs, but also value that is only worth it because the advertising is creating an even larger revenue stream in sales of whatever product is being pushed.

>Forces all websites to do an age check if they want to advertise

How do you do that though, a popup that asks you if you're over 18? I used to ignore those all the time when I was young. On Facebook I was a 60 years old man playing children games and following the silliest pages.

>make online advertising to children illegal

It is not always easy to tell the difference between advertising and someone talking about something they like and use.

> How do you do that though, a popup that asks you if you're over 18? I used to ignore those all the time when I was young. On Facebook I was a 60 years old man playing children games and following the silliest pages.

It would probably be similar to GDPR, and would have the immediate effect of removing a lot of garbage from the internet.

> Here’s how you fix the web, protect the children and ruin unhealthy parts of the economy at the same time: make online advertising to children illegal, full stop.

Here, I fixed it for you.

Adults aren't immune to inluencers either. Look how many fall for crypto scams or QAnon.

Why should advertising to children be illegal online but legal everywhere else? TV commercials have long leveraged advertising to children - cereal brands don't have cartoon mascots because it brings in adult customers.

If we want to ban advertising it should be by fundamentally changing how the web works. If we all want an internet that serves content instead of ads that is doable, the problem is that would sacrifice convenience and our society has been picking convenience above all else for decades.

The recent debate about the threat of TikTok has nothing to do with harming children.

We are taking about an app owned by a corporation controlled by the CCP which is running on half of the phones in the US.

In that context, comparing Bytedance to Apple, Google, Amazon and Meta is beyond ridiculous.

And from outside USA it really makes one wonder. If they fear single app so much. Should we for example in Europe fear any app from outside, specially from USA?

The EU has tackled the big players in this question in order to come to agreements that respect Europeans rights. This has worked to some capacity because we're able to communicate issues with one another and trust eachother's judicial systems.

I'm not sure if the same can be done with authoritative governments. I think that's where the problem lies.

Is data on European citizens held by US companies subject to national security letters?

The US actually has to lie about the real reason to ban TikTok because if they told the truth the WTO would be on their ass.

It's naked unabashed protectionism.

Even if it is protectionism, given that China engages in the same protectionism on their end, this seems like pretty reasonable policy.

Edit: Changed "It definitely is protectionism, but" to "Even if it is protectionism," since I can't say I truly know the truth of that statement.

How is it "beyond ridiculous" those seem like substantially the same thing to me.

It's not controlled by the CPC any more than Meta or Alphabet are controlled by the FBI/NSA/CIA, etc.

It has everything to do with children. The reason it's bad that an app controlled indirectly by the CCP is running on half the phones is not just because of 20th century concerns like "spying" and "espionage". It's because it affords the CCP direct control over a huge chunk of the attention and cultural zeitgeist of the US population. It's not exaggerating to call it a memetic weapon. It's not the only technological memetic weapon - the Facebook ads used by Cambridge Analytica also qualify - but it's the most successful one deployed internationally to date. That anyone has noticed, anyway.

Some have drawn parallels between TikTok and the opium wars. TikTok is 21st century opium. This is payback.

Not sure why people refuse to see how dysfunctional and toxic culture has gotten targeting kids and young adults.

Everything is blatantly racist, misandrist, misogynistic, anti marriage, anti family, pro sexual deviancy, anti female, pro violence, sexualising minors, etc. And then it's all packaged neatly and presented in little culture pills with catchy music and an enticing music video that confuses kids.

And then to top it all off, it's then protected from criticism using whatever means available.

> Some have drawn parallels between TikTok and the opium wars. TikTok is 21st century opium. This is payback.

IMO, that would be fentanyl.

IMHO if someone is a privacy advocate and they aren’t cheering this on and trying to push for more regulation or control of our data, I don’t know what to say. It probably has the most likelihood of making meaningful changes to the way we approach big tech.

As a non-American, I'd be cheering on legislation for stronger data protection, but this isn't really it. Banning TikTok is first and foremost a protectionist policy lobbied for by Facebook and the others. I think it is also short-sighted at that.

If the national security concerns are valid, then they are also valid regarding Meta and Google in other countries. US legislation will serve as a shining beacon for privacy advocates in the EU to ban or heavily regulate these data kraken as well. Even China had better reasons to ban Facebook, and can rightfully claim hypocrisy on the USs part once again.

Banning your competitors could also fracture the internet. For many young people, TikTok, Youtube and Instagram are the internet. It is an incredible means of soft power for the US currently, but they risk isolating themselves as TikTok might succeed without the American market as well.

The big problem is the asymmetry though. If you only go after specific companies on dubious grounds instead of crafting clear legislation applying to all companies in the sector, that's not in the spirit of constitutional democracy. It allows government and media to decide the winners and losers of the economy, which gives them power far beyond what is chaste.

Tech companys are paid to hack the customers brains in one way or another. The add buisness is nothing but a plausibel veneer for the "free services to exist" that allow to manipulate, observe and destroy.

The reason for the whole thing to be is obvious. Governments and companys are scared shitless of the multi-crisis coming up and want levers to pull that dont break and contain dissent. And they want to come out of the crisis, sitting on top of the ash heap. This is the actual buisness model and purpose to exist, not the friendly colorful sweets shop upfront.

Panopticon. Social egineering. Leviathancybernetics. Because solving problems for politicians is not a worthy endavour.

They want to solve the "meta"-problem that is the enraged citizen, the protesting org, the social unravelling forces that could uproot them.

Solution: Let them fight, blue vs greens, instead of discussing and forcing actual problem solutions. Big Tech is now a integral part of the big problem in democracy.

> Governments and companys are scared shitless of the multi-crisis coming up and want levers to pull that dont break and contain dissent.

That suggests foresight and planning on their part — something we've hitherto seen a scarcity of. I am not sure I buy that.

Evidence of "foresight and planning":

- WEF's The Great Reset: https://www.amazon.com/COVID-19-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab/dp/...

- UN's 2030 Agenda: https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda

- WEF and UN create strategic partnership for 2030 Agenda: https://www.weforum.org/press/2019/06/world-economic-forum-a...

- Central bank digital currencies: https://cbdctracker.org/

- The Russian invasion of Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine

- The BRICS alliance: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-15/brics-deb...

- Russia and China stop attending WEF conference in 2023: https://tass.com/economy/1562563

Its more a byproduct of the day to day operations? Sorry, i dont think i should have implied evil intent. There is very little intentional by individuals in power in all of this.

Its more aching to a sort of spec written by the logging output of whack-the-mole debugging?

> multi-crisis

What's that?

It takes 30 minutes of moderate effort to find this information, but really few people bother to do it. Our real problem is our inability to look at the landscape and synthesize a response, either individually or collectively.

We know social media is toxic to us, but we keep using it. We know our governments are corrupt, but we accept them anyway. We know AI will radically change society soon, but we keep acting like it won't.

We don't do anything because the walled gardens we're in don't tell us to, and we're currently quite comfortable, though increasingly concerned with that weird cloud coming towards us on the horizon. So we live in cognitive dissonance: constantly trying to "address the problem", then give up thinking maybe it's fine after all, and letting it happen for one more day.

The combination of addiction and visceral disbelief - we know the reality intellectually, but don't accept it - is ruining people's lives, and has neutered an entire generation (or multiple?).

We don't know how to act, how to coordinate, or even how to control ourselves. Instead, we find comfort in relying on dysfunctional systems that tell us "it's okay, don't worry about it". What would have spurred reform or revolution in a healthy population, instead falls flat. Eventually we'll each, individually, have to face the consequences of this dysfunction. Do you really want to risk your family's future on your present mental handicap?

Big Tech created the walled gardens, but we entrapped ourselves by willingly stepping into them. We happily gave our privacy away to Google, because we liked the convenience. Now we're cattle, and so we're being treated as such.

The only solution is to escape the reach of Big Tech and re-learn how to make sense of the world and be autonomous, then start working together to build new systems. See initiatives like:

- The authors of the memo: https://techoversight.org/

- The Consilience Project: https://consilienceproject.org/

- Metacrisis DAO: https://www.metacrisisdao.com/

- Center for Humane Technology: https://www.humanetech.com/

I'm not saying these initiatives are effective, but the fact that they exist is evidence that people are trying to address these problems.

We need to update Marx. "Social media is opium for the masses".

All hail the techno priests.

I’m very skeptical of any attempt to quash tiktok and ignores the mechanisms that allow them to collect and abuse data. Most of us have more more to worry about from FAANGlikes and who they enable than China.

What is FAANG going to do that they haven't been doing already?

American culture depends on the humble hiding away and the upper classes overseeing everything. That hasn't changed since the 1800s. The over-seers just have more data now.

China is a foreign government that can cause negative consequences, it's apples to oranges to compare Chinese foreign data collection to American domestic data collection.

So you don’t believe a country, who in the year 2023, systematically suppresses free speech, reporters, it’s own citizens, disregards it’s neighbors borders in violation of international norms and continually sides with Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine… who also has demonstrated the ability as well as the willingness in the last 2-3 years to exert both overt and covert controls over social media platforms within its sphere of influence…

Is effectively the same or less of a threat than Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram?

You really don’t see any strategic or geopolitical concerns and think that FAANGs are more dangerous?

I’m genuinely curious.

Data is for sale for nearly every public interaction you have, every dollar you spend, every medical appointment, your location from your phone, really just everything, with at best laughable attempts to anonymize it.

Everyone is collecting data about everything they can and figuring out how to monetize it.

Facebook and google in particular are worst offenders here but there are plenty of others.

I am much more concerned with the effects and consumers of this data which have much more to benefit from it and have. Unless you’re an individual of particular interest to China (people in politics and defense should avoid tiktok) there’s much less to fear than domestic sources and sinks of data.

I strongly disagree. The anti-Ukraine messaging recently adopted by the right didn’t come from the individuals thoughtful consideration of geopolitics, but a careful influence campaign by Russia. China will do the same in their attempt to retake Taiwan, and TikTok will be their mechanism. Anyone speaking up against Chinese aggression will be silenced and any pro-Chinese voices will be amplified. This isn’t about silencing Charli DAmelio’s first amendment rights to wiggle, but China’s attempt to sway foreign policy while they crush yet another democracy.

>a careful influence campaign by Russia

Which helped Trump get elected, which was enabled by a former-KGB-led Cambridge Analytica which was sold data en masse by Facebook who after the fact put on a show about how it was not used as intended. BS, they didn't care, they just wanted to make money. Everybody is doing it and you only know about the ones who got caught.

Again, much more worried about FAANG+ than TikTok.

Do you think TikTok isn’t the next Cambridge Analytica? Are they benign? No, they are fully controlled by the CCP and will be used to crush Taiwan.

Tell me you don’t understand the issue, without telling me you don’t understand the issue.

First off, raw data is not for sale from FAANGs, it is their most jealously guarded golden goose.

Second, the entire point isn’t that you as an individual have something to fear from the CCP, the point is they have/can/will use their platform to push specific viewpoints, amplify messages with the goal of influencing public opinion. AKA propaganda.

Say what you want about big tech, but continuing to allow the CCP a direct conduit into 140 million Americans is pants on head stupid. Bytedance have known about the issues and have yet to actually meaningfully address these concerns. In fact they have done thing which make things worse, they have actively obfuscated things and used their platform to go after reporters.

Anyone who says this is protectionism is either naive or not making a genuine argument.

Any source for China siding with Russia? The impression that I've got over the last 400 days is that China tries to take up the role as a mediator.

China is supporting Russia with drones and other equipment such as radios.

https://www.bbc.com/news/60571253

Mediator should communicate with both sides. Xi already met with Putin more then once, while he was not in Kiev.

In the first sentence you're basically describing the united states can you see that? The iraq occupation is on everyone's minds recently and that was basically the ukraine invasion of the 2000s. We have protestors facing life in prison on terrorism charges for putting paint on a road, we have an inward focused civil surveillance program rivaled only by, yes, china. We're no better!

Being blunt, the mere fact that you can talk about that in public shows me you don’t truly understand the difference between US or European values and CCP values. You can and should have policy discussions about how the US isn’t perfect and can do better, since in many ways this isn’t possible in many parts of the world.

If you live in the west and can’t see that CCP interests are not aligned with the wests interests, you are a fool.

No I clearly see that. I also see that the US's interests aren't aligned with the world's interests. They're only partially aligned with my own interests.

A mismatch of interests doesn't make an entity evil. Their other actions may make them so and I think there's a compelling argument that they do. But so do our actions.

And I'm not even arguing that we're "as bad" or anything like that. But we are certainly bad enough and if you can condemn a chinese tech product because of the actions of china you can certainly condemn an american tech product because of the actions of the US.

I think something you should consider is the heirarchical nature and the tight integration of business, politics and social policy in the CCP vs the US.

In the US, it’s more like a loose federation of aligned interests vs a top down, integrated system. If Facebook is doing bad things and being used to facilitate propaganda, it’s largely a failure of Facebook and the lack of appropriate legislation or oversight.

Whereas TikTok has been accused of promoting pro-China viewpoints, and the reality is the way business is operated there, the lines are blurred between what TikTok the company does and what TikTok the CCP controlled entity does.

I'm too strict a consequentialist to care honestly. US tech companies further US imperial interests, as chinese tech companies further chinese imperial interests. The specific incentives and mechanisms by which they do it aren't that important for this case.

The whole argument seems to center on the assumption that the US's imperial interests are better than china's, which I disagree with. They are possibly better for americans, in the same way that china's are possibly better for chinese people, and so I can understand a self-interested support of one over the other.

But I don't think that's a consistent or moral position. Undermining chinese interests in favor of american ones is not actually better than undermining american interests in favor of chinese ones. Both are terrible and both must be opposed; to a significant extent they are expressions of the same evil.

I thought TikTok was a threat because it's used to broadcast pro-China and anti-American propaganda. As far as I know, none of the other US tech giants are doing that.

Reddit certainly used to but I haven't used it in years.

it isn't used to do that, they fear that it could be used to do that.

I have plenty of Chinese propaganda in my TikTok feeds right now.

Interesting. Please link one.

I read ´great’ and though to myself: that might be an original piece for once

I trust China and tiktok more than I trust Facebook and Washington DC

Not wasting my time reading/watching useless stuff on the Internet is great.

Ironic you say that here

Hacker News is definitely better than scrolling in tiktok for countless hours, or watching the perfect life of an "influencer" on Instagram.

it's really not. there are very smart people posting things on both tiktok and instagram - and there are plenty of dumb takes on here. go on "new", for instance. you can also scroll for hours on here.

True, but the percentages are different. Signal to noise ratio is way better here.

It is. As far as I can tell, Hacker News is not designed to be addictive, the site doesn't push 10 seconds clips to keep you scrolling, if you find something interesting you stay otherwise you leave, there is no algorithm to recommend the best article for you. There are no groups/pages to subscribe to, the threads get pushed by the users. I believe this is infinitely better than the way Instagram or Tiktok work, sure you can find interesting people there too but you'd have to put up with an uncomfortable amount of nonsense and I don't know if you're really willing to make that sacrifice when better alternatives exist.

I think HN is a beacon of light in a sea of mediocrity.

I still learn interesting things here every day.

You wouldn't believe how much tiktok helps at parenting, giving tiny bits of information every day to help with the problems you have with a newborn. To have you constantly updated on first-aid for newborns...

Same thing also goes for a ton of other topics, eg. woodworking.

Of course, you have to get into the right circles first, bit there is so much knowledge, easy to grasp, not much time or effort needed. But it takes a couple of days to get there.

In the same vein we can argue that PornHub helps with some things, too.

I guess... It's just the format that doesn't work for me. I'm not really into short video. I'm more of a long read person. Even the long videos that YouTube does don't interest me. I might watch only one YouTube a month, usually because what I need is not available elsewhere.

I find written content much more to the point and much more accessible. But short nonsense snippets like Twitter don't interest me either.

So with TikTok basically being the Twitter of video it's not useful to me.

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