I don’t know if it’s intentional or not - it’s possibly not - but I know it makes her more sad than happy.
One of the main reasons TikTok has been grilled by congress is because of China's stance and willingness to violate any law for their own benefit.
One of those benefits not very commonly understood in America by the general populace is Political Warfare, which China calls the destruction of national will in their own documentation.
The USMC University has an ebook that is freely available that describes what is done, why its important, and its effects. It is a worthwhile read, if you do further research on this know that Bezmenov is not credible; there are much more credible sources, that's not to say what he says is necessarily incorrect, the best deceit weaves truth into lies.
The general gist is they seek to put people into a psychological state of demoralization, in that state you typically polarize into two separate groups.
Apathetic and complacent where you don't react to anything, and the other where you lash out at anything that you perceive or triggers you (through psychological anchoring [using NLP vocabulary], and various form of isolation). The conflict between these three groups (apathetic, violent, rational) allows a smaller number of people to seize power in a destabilization event which is a regime change playbook that most governments have used at one point or another. Historically, the last stage of that playbook involves getting back to a new normal by consolidating, and eliminating detractors (those people that lashed out).
Its subtle, and deceitful, but certain things you just can't give others the benefit of the doubt. Existential threats to your individual identity (which is what's often targeted during propaganda, and political warfare efforts), are one of those things. If its present, the source isn't credible and shouldn't be used regardless of what they say.
P.S. There's also a lawsuit from a TikTok insider that just made headlines recently disclosing how code was in the app to allow CCP backdoor access to US data and amplify or de-amplify narratives according to Communist core values. If there was any question about TikTok's credibility and their narrative that they don't do this; that pretty much seals the deal given everything else assuming of course what was said is factually correct.
They clearly would not have credibility, which would eliminate them as a potential choice in any risk management analysis you might need to do.
[Link]: https://www.businessinsider.com/new-lawsuit-alleges-tiktok-o...
1. Proper data protection laws that apply universally to every company. No more “oh sorry we fucked up here’s free credit monitoring”. I’m talking fines of 5% base + 1% daily increase for every day they delay announcing their fuck up of global revenue. If they’ve tried to hide it and it comes out later, that company gets nationalized.
2. Actual lawsuits against the various social media companies that have actively aided in manipulating people. E.g Cambridge Analytica
3. Removal of any “limited liability” protections against execs that actively stood by and waited for this to happen. Execs being defined by the top 10-20% of the company by both assets and income (stock and cash)
If you’re talking about “communist core values” you’re, respectfully, fallen into a weird propaganda trap. Nothing about China is “communist”. North Korea calls themselves democratic, but no one actually calls them that.
To me, your comment sounds like a bag of Sinophobia mixed in with a bunch of “ok” takes assuming you want this applied to everyone. Not just the new big baddie.
Anyone that's educated in this area knows just because someone says something is true, it doesn't make it so, and discussing that wasn't even part of the comment so you are getting into the weeds.
For your own edifice, can you (for yourself) tell what are the differences between socialism, communism, fascism and fabianism; and which ones are mutually exclusive? A google search surface view won't be much help with answering that; best resource is historical texts and essays.
To me, you seem to have mixed objectives or have been seriously misled. You claim its new, but this in fact is a very old 'baddie' wrapped up in new clothing.
With additional education one might also know that something not being actually true very often has little influence on whether people believe it to be true, which is what really matters when it comes to propaganda...and I found your text quite impressive, very believable.
Could you give a summary of these? Especially, which ones are mutually exclusive.
As well, do you agree with the following summary?
F means "anti-"
state capital anarchist flavor
T T non-anarchist / unknown
T F libertarian socialist?
F T impossible anarchist
F F libertarian communist
References
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35851409
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35851392
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35845460
Thank-you for your time.
The general Chinese population are not to blame here as they are just another victim of the CPP.
Growing up my self in a totalitarian "communist" regime (none of them are communist for that matter, they incorporate socialist and communist ideas in their propaganda) I know there's nothing you can do as an individual to change the system and getting organized with other people is technically impossible, as the climate of fear and distrust is such that you don't dare to talk about anything closely related to politics among neighbors, friends and even relatives.
We know what happens to Chinese exec, artists and athletes when they don't play by the CPP rules.
Just imagine if in the US it was normal for people like Jeff Bezos, LeBron James or Jennifer Lawrence "dissappear" every time they confront the US government and the psychological impact that would have on the regular population.
https://calvert.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-calvert-t...
Maybe a typo in both cases?
Maybe it was a romanized translation of CCP, or perhaps poster wrote C++ a lot, or CPP really was associated with CCP. However, I don't yet know what it stands for.
If it were any other way, then Maoist "Struggle Sessions" could be completed in hours or days, rather than taking weeks and months--and including stages of change that have to be completed before moving on (and, conversely, the manufactured fear of inadvertent regression in a moment of "temporary insanity" being a significant driver of the process) .
The process ("struggle," meaning a process that is explicitly laborious at each step) of "reeducation" (brainwashing) is a topic that entire books have been written about. One such book, by Robert Lifton, contains interviews with American soldiers captured in NK and Chinese dissidents who were subjected to brainwashing by the Mao Zedong regime, called "Thought Reform and the Psychology of a Totalism" (the claim that merely addressing this subject at all is "sinophobic" is actually one of the integral steps in the administration of a struggle session; calling someone"racist" or "sexist" in similar circumstances, likewise).
I'll end this comment by reiterating its central tenet: there is a reason they were called struggle sessions, not "moments of insight." It's a process, rather than a realization. If you read 1984, then the description of the events in room 101 give you a l crude understanding of the process, but written by someone who might be deemed a B-/C+ scholar of the subject: having internalized the process in its entirety and having a general understanding of the process (so they could be a facilitator of it, perhaps), but without the full appreciation of the psychological significance of each stage (I.e. insufficient to be an "architect," or someone capable of optimizing a process they themselves do not fully understand). To his credit, Orwell does a not too bad job of explaining the mechanism of brainwashing to a layman audience; but--and especially if you've read the book yourself--there are aspects in it that remain intellectually obtuse, or counterintuitive.
PS: I concede, it is perhaps possible to have lived in a totalitarian system, without ever experiencing a struggle session in person. It's after all a fairly intensive process and therefore mostly reserved for political prisoners. For example, the NKVD in Soviet Russia didn't mass arrest people to subject them to struggle sessions (something written about in detail by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Gulag Archipelago)--it mass arrested people and shipped them off to Siberia.
PPS: I forgot to add, one example of a modern implementation of Struggle Sessions is the so-called "Cancel Culture." Conversely, watch the stages the person being publicly "cancelled" undergo, beginning with refusal and rejection (correct), but then transitioning to admission (incorrect, because they are more often than not not guilty of what they're accused of, they merely want the pain to end and for things to return to normal, which is a normal and sane human desire; where they go wrong is in assuming that once they cave, things will go back to normal; if, by "normal," they mean release, then read what happens after Winston Smith is released) and finally concluding with profound, heartfelt apology, and subsequent loss in their previous standing/authority, since they just admitted to the (mostly fabricated) crimes they were accused of (incorrect, because they were dragged through the mud and admitted to manufactured crimes). Come to think of it, Cancel Culture is actually a pretty optimal form of Struggle Sessions. Mao would be proud, especially after learning where this was taking place.
Nobody here is complaining about Chinese people. They are complaining about a particular regime at the head of the Chinese government. They have approximately zero overlap and accusations of Sinophobia are designed to smokescreen any accusations of a government.
[1] https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/Political%20Warfare_web.pd...
Can you share more specifics about this eBook? Thanks!
I appreciated it as an interesting read because it takes a here's what happened, here's what we were seeing. This is what was happening based on other information we have available, and historically what we know to be true about the doctrine they are following with real examples.
Compared to other material where you have to critically evaluate and parse doublespeak, and other tautological traps, on a paragraph by paragraph basis; the book in comparison gets pretty straight to the point, and its gratuitous use of references (& footnotes) to support what is said is a sign of any well researched, and rational document.
https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press...
I think TikTok is generally damaging, but not any more damaging than Twitter, Instagram, FB. Ultimately the content is produced by users.
The post above containing a detailed conspiracy of political warfare was entertaining to read, but it's likely bullshit.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/american-kids-would-...
> Maybe the interests of teenagers in China and in the US differ?
Maybe China has an extensive and well-known censorship and social media control apparatus, that shapes experiences according to the plans of the authorities?
For that reason, ByteDance almost certainly has technology to force the experience in a particular direction, because if they didn't they'd run afoul of the Chinese authorities. So the question is, why have they chosen to have (Chinese) Douyin show "generally affirmative content to teens" but not (US) TikTok? It's plausible that the reason is a program of national demoralization directed at the US. Another plausible reason is the Chinese system is better able to regulate certain self-destructive tendencies that liberal democracies are more vulnerable to.
Can you imagine if they did? People would go bonkers with conspiracy, saying that they don't respect free speech, etc.
Not exactly. Let me explain in a slightly roundabout way: there's an old article/song that states a truth "Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly." The Chinese government censorship requirements mean ByteDance certainly has the technology to prevent showing beauty magazines to teens (because they also have to suppress so much else), and the Chinese government (in a good bit of policy that goes with the bad) may have directly told them to use that technology to not show beauty magazines to teens. That means they loose some $$$ in China because they can't make Chinese teens feel ugly by showing them beauty magazines. However, they come to America, shut off that technology, and make go some $$$ in the US by making American teens feel ugly.
Note: I'm not literally talking about beauty magazines, I'm just using them as a stand in for "negative, but appealing" content, because that quote I started with came to mind.
These platforms are designed and optimized to achieve goals set by various parties. It's naive to look at a difference like this and assume the algorithm is neutral and they cause is some "difference in interests."
In the West, they are not required to restrict content (and that for them es great, if people use the app more for that). I really disagree that there's any conspiracy there.
But it is ironic that people would like Chinese-style censorship on social media now. It's an interesting time to be alive.
Given that's my experience with Facebook, I'm going with that ad the more likely explanation.
The history of all social media shows that when you optimize for engagement in that way dark, hostile, triggering, or just mindless addictive filler is what you get. As I said elsewhere: trash seems to maximize engagement.
If China let TikTok prioritize only engagement in China they’d also have a feed of nothing but mental junk food.
I must mention that overgeneralizing is a form of flawed reasoning and must be guarded against, also simply saying its the algorithm neglects the fact that people had to design and approve the algorithm which included their intentions that went into that. That statement tacitly absolves responsibility for actions done in bringing it to market.
None of this would be possible to this degree if there wasn't a many to one platform of fake people where a monolithic entity can determine how much certain subjects people get exposed to and talk about.
Communication is a fundamental part of human identity, and distorting process leads to issues from reflected appraisal.
https://steemit.com/security/@tinfoilfedora/the-gentlemans-g...
I fail to see how this is any different than what USA based media does.
It isn't but that doesn't make it any less egregious.
There is no algorithm acting independently. The responsibile agent(s) is(are) a person(people).
I didn't absolve the creator of guilt, I just said that it's unlikely they're intentionally trying to make her sad. They're just trying to increase engagement - at any cost.
Do you know this for certain?
The counterintelligence and economic espionage efforts emanating from the government of China and the Chinese Communist Party are a grave threat to the economic well-being and democratic values of the United States.
Confronting this threat is the FBI’s top counterintelligence priority.
To be clear, the adversary is not the Chinese people or people of Chinese descent or heritage. The threat comes from the programs and policies pursued by an authoritarian government.
The Chinese government is employing tactics that seek to influence lawmakers and public opinion to achieve policies that are more favorable to China.
At the same time, the Chinese government is seeking to become the world’s greatest superpower through predatory lending and business practices, systematic theft of intellectual property, and brazen cyber intrusions.
China’s efforts target businesses, academic institutions, researchers, lawmakers, and the general public and will require a whole-of-society response. The government and the private sector must commit to working together to better understand and counter the threat.
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/the-chin...
ByteDance's motives should, by now, be clear.
Are Sandy Hook Promise and St Jude's Hospital (manor YouTube advertisers) also CCP propaganda?
Development, selection, tuning, and ultimately deployment of that algorithm were all intentional actions.
I've already, with her consent, wiped her advertising profiles once. This reduced the incidents from, at its peak, every couple days, to every couple weeks.
Thing is, none of these stories are against any kind of content policy. News reporting and articles about history are all above-board. But this kind of stuff showing up on her feed, mixed with "normal" baby stuff, with alarming frequency? That's for the first time that I felt how "the algorithm" can fuck people over.
Many years ago, I tried using Facebook. I few months later I decided it was causing distress, as political discussion among people I knew was reducing my respect for friends and acquaintances. My next logical action was to completely abandon Facebook. I didn't even bother to delete my account, I just removed the app and never browsed it again.
I always wonder why people keep using apps that distress them.
I showed her this thread and her response was that these sudden and intense emotional videos hidden among the dozens of happy ones is actually why she doesn’t use is as much as she would otherwise.
I protect my SO, with whom I cohabitate, by sharing my knowledge and experience with. By leading.
If my SO starts exhibiting behaviour indicative of new psychological / physical pathology, we deal with it, together.
We, I, don't do nothing. That's what's commonly referred to as enabling.
I had a partner who smoked and continually encouraged them to quit. It took years. Pathological behaviors are hard to break.
As is the generally accepted method of writing comments around here.
Absence of further explanation is invitation of discuss. So here we are.
That's absolute nonsense. There's no reason for OP to disclose that information in relation to the post they made. They were just posting a personal experience, not looking for anyone's advice.
That doesn't sound like an argument anyone would intentionally make.
You expand your knowledge and experience to influence in beneficial directions.
Small perturbations can result in dramatic change over time.
If someone your SO invited in to your home repeatedly resulted in your SO crying, would you continue to watch this happen time and again, or would you encourage change?