From a European perspective, I don't see TikTok as any different from American platforms. America has been caught spying on other countries and interfering with democracies before.
And whether this judgement is significantly different from whether reducing influence from the CCP, an obviously totalitarian government that does not balk at overtly undermining of democratic values within your own borders, is worth losing access to TikTok.
Here:
- Is it worth losing access to US social media to reduce the influence of the US government?
- Is it worth losing access to TikTok to reduce the influence of the CCP?
Are these the questions your are asking? I really want to understand your comment because I think the same as the parent commenter. And even though I don't understand what you're try saying, it seems like they are important questions I should ask myself.
Subtle US interference and soft power, unpalatable though it may be, is not a real problem for European quality of life even in isolation, certainly not compared to the benefits of cultural exhcange & compatibility, and the following long-term trade and geopolitical cooperation with the US.
Whereas interference and soft power from the CCP deliberately undermines multiple core values of our society. It’s pretty damn obvious.
I guess to which degree Europe & the EU actually follows democratic values is a separate and very worthwhile discussion; maybe it’s closely related. Certainly looks like that from where I sit, at the northernmost border of the economic block.
The CCP seeks to undermine these systems to favour totalitarianism.
Still it has not much of an effect on the here and now. I'd still rather not be ruled by a communist totalitarian dictatorship.
As a European, I'm more likely to be extradited and tortured by the US than the CCP. I'm sure much of the world hasn't forgotten their penchant for assassinations, support for dictators, and destabilisation of democratically elected governments. Let's not forget the decades long mess that was the Iraq war.
As a European you're effectively only protected from Russian aggression (or re-invasion, depending on which country you're in) because of NATO, which is substantially led by the US. Germany, Poland, the Baltic states, etc. would be completely up shit creek right now if it wasn't for US military involvement in NATO and arms in Ukraine. It's why you see Finland etc. racing to join after years of non-alignment.
Why wouldn't China cosy up to Russia? The US has spent much of the last decade tearing apart most of the progress they made over the last five. The Trump administration took an overtly hostile stance to relations.
> As a European you're effectively only protected from Russian aggression (or re-invasion, depending on which country you're in) because of NATO, which is substantially led by the US. Germany, Poland, the Baltic states, etc. would be completely up shit creek right now if it wasn't for US military involvement in NATO and arms in Ukraine. It's why you see Finland etc. racing to join after years of non-alignment.
Russia can barely deal with Ukraine's largely irregular army. They'd get wiped trying to invade any of the EU states.
In less recent memory we might recall the US "protecting democracy" by providing direct financial, training, operational training, and the occasional assassination to military coups/dictators in Latin America[0].
Allies of the US certainly have it a lot easier but it doesn't mean their leaders communications won't be monitored [1].
China's behaviour is certainly objectionable but as someone that lives in neither country the US has a much more worrying history of foreign interference.
> The administration of President George W. Bush abducted hundreds of "illegal combatants" for U.S. detention, and transported detainees to U.S.-controlled sites as part of an extensive interrogation program that included torture.
> Extraordinary rendition continued under the Obama administration, with targets being interrogated and subsequently taken to the U.S. for trial.
> A June 2006 report estimated that one hundred people had been kidnapped by the CIA on European Union soil
TikTok is sketchy AF, but you don’t ban it. Just have your buddies at Raytheon or Teledyne snatch up the old Vine assets and get cheugy with it.
why ban at all?
or did you mean why not ban TikTok AND america?? hmmm that's a more interesting proposition
It's a slippery slope
no it's not. there's no such thing as a slippery slope.
ban TikTok. it is a threat.
It's not a slippery slope, true, its already the bottom one worries about a slippery slope leading to.
either the one decision destroys something (no slope into an uncontrollable outcome) or there are multiple decisions which appear as a single destructive decision (multiple independent decisions, rather than a slope into an uncontrollable outcome) even though any decision could have been the one to stop the unintended effect feared in the beginning. the outcome is always under control. maybe not by someone you favor, but it is always under control.
it's literally called "The Slippery Slope Fallacy."
"dangerous levels of ignorance" pfft
the outcome is either the result of a single decision (not a slope) or a result of multiple independent decisions, any one of which could stop the forecasted unintended consequence (not slippery).
There is very little risk that I hurt myself doing cocaine responsibly once. The risk in doing cocaine is that if I do it once, I will be inclined to do it again and so on until I'm a broke addict. If slippery slopes were a mythical problem, I could just commit to doing cocaine only once.
If you ban alcohol, private citizens will be more likely to decide to start a criminal enterprise to supply it outside of the law. If someone is running a profitable criminal enterprise, they'll be less concerned about breaking the law in general and more likely to branch out to violent crimes. If slippery slopes were a myth, we could institute prohibition without risking a massive expansion of the criminal underworld.
I can't find it now, but I saw a comment on HN the other day where a UK citizen expressed how foolish Americans were for disliking their knife laws. Of course they should ban knives in public- knives account for the majority of homicides in their country. No one in the US could be convinced by that argument until effective gun control made it true. Instituting gun control makes it more likely for citizens and politicians to support knife control. (Whether this is worth it is another matter.)
Independent decisions are a myth; every decision is made in the context of the ones that came before.
If the US withdrew from NATO we would be in theoretical trouble.
If US would like to hurt us economically, our retaliation capacities are weak.
All in all we unfortunately depend on the US and have to play along.
When Donald Trump decided to punish Iran he forced EU companies to retract from Iran as well (despite having contracts there). If we were to not comply, there would be sanctions against EU companies operating in the US.
We asked the EU Commission for help on that but ultimately the EU did not have enough weight. So we got off Iran.
Note that I am not addressing the human/ethical aspects of operating in Iran, just the economic imbalance between the US and EU
The point is that EVERY country needs to concern itself with its own national security, local laws and regulations. I wish that every country would embrace freedom, free trade and the open Internet and that we could all just get along ... but those are my personal value judgments being applied. In the current world of foreign relations, countries are going to act according to their own national interests, whatever those happen to be. Each will pretend that it is the one taking the "right" position, and each might behave hypocritically in the moment. The question of who is "right" and who is "wrong" will vary according to your own set of moral principals and beliefs.
They are not saying that it should or should not be banned.
And I do agree: I don't feel more threatened by TikTok than by Big Data.
TikTok is state owned and state controlled. On top of that, the communist Chinese state has consistently threatened its neighbors with violent annexation. I think it's a dishonest argument to claim that independent American platforms and state-owned Chinese platforms are equivalent.
Are you saying that the US government can compel these companies to take certain actions in the same way that the Chinese government can? Like, as in, being able to force the company to give up all of its users' private details? Or being able to force the company to inject malware into their software?
There is reasonable evidence of this happening. For example: what happened with Qwest. The former CEO claims this was the primary reason for him being targeted. He was openly against the spying by the NSA before the charges were filed. https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/former-qwest-ceo-joe-na...
https://onezero.medium.com/cops-are-increasingly-requesting-...
I'm surprised you haven't heard of this by now, its been known for years. Of course you can say police will only use it in "real emergencies" but you're not the one defining what a "real emergency" is and cops lie constantly just to get information
> ByteDance is financially backed by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, SoftBank Group, Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic, and Hillhouse Capital Group. As of March 2021, it was estimated to be valued at $250 billion in private trades.[0]
> ByteDance says 60% of its shares are owned by non-Chinese investors such as U.S investment firms Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Japan's SoftBank Group. Employees own 20% and its founders the remaining 20%. [1]
> On top of that, the communist Chinese state has consistently threatened its neighbors with violent annexation. I think it's a dishonest argument to claim that independent American platforms and state-owned Chinese platforms are equivalent.
I don't think America has much moral high ground when it comes to violent foreign interference.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok
[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/us-chinese-owned...