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> The TikTok ban has very little do with TikTok. It's yet another Patriot Act (now, the Restrict Act [2]) style back door to slip in some seriously heinous legislation that could find you fined to the tune of millions, or worse, thrown in jail for 20 years.

Yep. They couldnt put the backdoors through the 'we are fighting pedophilia' excuse. Now they are using Tiktok...

> I do view TikTok as a covert military campaign (ideological subversion) and do think it should be limited in the West, however, not via this bill.

I'd like you to expand on the idea that is it is "a covert military campaign (ideological subversion)". It's common talking point, but I literally do not understand it. Sure there are some Chinese based creators that are spreading lies like how everything is super cool in Xinjiang with Uyghurs, but I can go on Twitter and find some American tankie saying that as well. The *VAST* majority of stuff on my FYP is cosplayers, dancing girls, dumb and intentionally awkward jokes, and skateboarders. Are Warhammer 40k and 3d printed Star Wars droids a CCP plot on par with the CIA and modern art[0][1]? To what end? To crash our economy by trying to get us to impress skateboarding leggy Chinese girls with the size of our 7-foot Imperator Titans[2]? Chinese girls that would no doubt a face swapped APT-2 officer, ala Azusagakuyuki[3][4]?

I'm not trying to be dismissive, but it does seem far fetched. So what's the best argument?

[0] https://daily.jstor.org/was-modern-art-really-a-cia-psy-op/

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10463076

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VgjqNmKPEE

[3] https://twitter.com/azusagakuyuki

[4] https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3g88m/viral-japanese-biker-...

I'll get downvoted for it, but the lot of it is around gender ideology and feminism. It's also around the general infantilisation of younger populations in the West (i.e., promotion of victimhood as a virtue).

As for a why: look at the parallel of how the Chinese raise their youth, specifically in relation to combat and military service [1]. If your biggest adversary is the United States/its Western allies and you intend to perform a military strike down the road, it's in your best interest to weaken their fighting population physically and mentally to an extent where they're either non-existent or easily destroyed.

That military strike could either be Taiwan, or, on the continental United States in conjunction with other BRICS countries (namely, Russia and now, Iran and Saudi Arabia).

I get that the idea is unsavory and triggering (just me having to say that is evidence that the campaign was/is successful), but it's a reality that people need to be aware of in the West. Western hegemony is coming to an end and the geopolitical vultures are taking flight.

[1] https://bitterwinter.org/compulsory-military-education-chine...

The fact is, the modern Western mind is built entirely with advertising, propaganda, and mass-media manipulation. I'm sure foreign adversaries are attempting to use these mechanisms to weaken us too, but even if they somehow weren't, domestic market forces are sufficient to turn our brains to mush.

You think you're a rebellious independent-minded feminist sticking it to the patriarchy (or [insert identity here])? Yeah maybe, but you're also being tricked into spending money on stupid unhealthy shit by a real-life cartoon villain. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom

Correct.

So when would you say that China started this operation? 10/15 years ago when Tumblr was arguably at its cultural peak? Maybe when Obama was elected? Or 25/30 years ago when MTV was one of the first national TV stations broadcasting LGBTQ-friendly content several hours a day? Or maybe in the 70s/80s when the message began spreading across the "liberal elite" institutions?

Because the things you talk about in your first sentence saw their rise many years ago, and you are only seeing people in relative positions of power now who were raised or grew their careers in places surrounded by these ideas. And they've been raising kids along the way. It stands to reason their kids might be a little more radical.

Quite the long game China is playing!

Can you describe how TikTok's algorithm works? Because there's plenty of people on TikTok who only see street fights, or only rich person fridge organization, or military life "pov"s. Or Minecraft gameplay. And so on. TikTok is known for providing hyper-local content too, so if you're in say, rural Mississippi, you're less likely to see the feminism and gender ideology videos.

In the case of TikTok, I'd argue it was China seizing an opportunity, not so much being the progenitor.

Interesting that you've been downvoted enough to get the light text coloring, but the only reply to you so far is the parent commenter's concern about "gender ideology and feminism".

You should checkout my all time favorite comment of mine. It’s on my profile.

For those interested, the important stuff can be found in the bill on these pages: 1, 10-22, 32, 36-46, 50-52.

Unless you're making apps that run on one of the named platform types, you don't have to worry.

No need to be interested unless you develop for:

... [critical infra] ...

... [telecom / internet] ...

... [services] ...

... [IoT anyone uses] ...

... [unmanned vehicles] ...

... [apps] ...

... [anything important] ...

So the people that create and maintain the foss libraries such as SQLite and libcurl should worry and you think that's okay?

I suppose the previous comment was meant to be sarcastic