Hacker News Reader

Facebook does exactly the same thing. I highly doubt it's a grand CCP conspiracy. It's more likely the incredibly mundane (but far more insidious) explanation that The Algorithm(TM) has discovered that, in aggregate, it leads to more eyeballs viewing for longer.

This doesn't explain the reported discrepancy between the feeds of users in China compared to those in the US. Reportedly, Chinese TikTok recommends educational videos and generally affirmative content to teens, whereas the recommendations on American TikTok tend to be much darker.

Maybe the interests of teenagers in China and in the US differ?

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.

I'm reminded of this article, where Chinese children stated would rather be an astronaut than a youtuber, but kids in the USA and UK rank astronaut behind youtuber.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/american-kids-would-...

I'm probably just old but I've been worried about the cynical and dark nature of the kids for awhile now. Stuff like internet comics haven't struck me as terribly funny going all the way back to stuff like 'cyanide and happiness'. This is the stuff that kids in the US like and tiktok is feeding them what they want.

> This doesn't explain the reported discrepancy between the feeds of users in China compared to those in the US. Reportedly, Chinese TikTok recommends educational videos and generally affirmative content to teens, whereas the recommendations on American TikTok tend to be much darker.

> 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.

So your argument is that ByteDance doesn't let CCP authorities censorship directives to affect the app they serve abroad?

Can you imagine if they did? People would go bonkers with conspiracy, saying that they don't respect free speech, etc.

I get the free speech argument and support it. But free doesn't mean unrestricted. Sexualising minors we've deemed harmful and not allowed. Is showing and endless stream of mind numbing "you're not pretty/rich/etc enough" videos also not harmful? I do get there is a point to draw the line, but have we drawn it in the right spot?

> So your argument is that ByteDance doesn't let CCP authorities censorship directives to affect the app they serve abroad?

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."

I get that, but they only restrict content in China because the Chinese government directs them to do so. If they don't comply, they will be shutdown.

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.

It's also plausible that, in the absence of regulation, social media optimises itself towards sex, outrage and provocation as the most profitable.

Given that's my experience with Facebook, I'm going with that ad the more likely explanation.

The cause is probably a bit more benign than what you hint at. China likely mandates that positive content in the domestic market, but in overseas markets TikTok is simply left free to do the usual thing of sorting content for maximum user engagement with the app.

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.

The goal need not match up with CCP, this is a red herring, there are many other actors in this space each with their own goals using the same or similar methodology and practices.

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.

> 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.

I fail to see how this is any different than what USA based media does.

>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.

> The USMC University has an ebook that is freely available that describes what is done, why its important, and its effects.

Can you share more specifics about this eBook? Thanks!

Here's the link. The pdf link is on the left side about a quarter of the way down.

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 also think it's intentional that any discussion of TikTok's behaviour, no matter how egregious, always seems to get derailed (Facebook is worse! The US govt is terrible! etc etc) or ends up in a muddy swamp of confusing/conflicting narratives where no clear conclusion can be made.

https://steemit.com/security/@tinfoilfedora/the-gentlemans-g...

Can you link that ebook, please?

I found it via "USMC Political Warfare filetype:pdf"

[1] https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/Political%20Warfare_web.pd...

Here’s the solution here:

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.

While I agree with some of what you say, with respect, that latter part I think you've fallen into a flawed association trap through the use of corrupted language.

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.

> Anyone that's educated in this area knows just because someone says something is true, it doesn't make it so

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.

> socialism, communism, fascism and fabianism; and which ones are mutually exclusive

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

What is the "very old 'baddie' wrapped in new clothing" you refer to?

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.

Telling the truth about the CPP and their absolute control of Chinese "private" corporations to spy and infiltrate their adversaries is not Sinophobia.

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.

Is the "CPP" the Chinese Pommunist Party?

You jest, but I also found it here:

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.

That document says “Chinese Communist Party (CCP)” then uses CCP 7 more times. It uses CPP once, which is clearly a typo.

communist party of pugs

I wanted to say that what you say seems to confirm your claim regarding your past. But the last thing you stated makes me wonder. It's not that I'm calling you a liar; it's just that you seem to gloss over one of the most important aspects of totalitarian systems. The things is, nobody who's actually lived through such an incredibly repressive system for any length of time would say "you can imagine" (speaking to someone who is presumed to never have experienced it themselves), because it is inherently something very very difficult to imagine, as an outsider; and it's not a matter of intelligence, because so much of it amounts to the manipulation of raw instinct and human nature.

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.

Check your mental models. Anytime you reach for the term “sinophobia”, you are likely unintentionally repeating CCP propaganda.

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.