Propaganda is widely used on social media. Why focus on TikTok?
Other countries have laws and agencies to protect against propaganda; the US doesn't bother. I doubt the propaganda concern is driving political will.
Other countries have laws and agencies to protect against propaganda; the US doesn't bother. I doubt the propaganda concern is driving political will.
Because TikTok is a "rogue" social media (from the U.S.'s perspective, of course)?
> Other countries have laws and agencies to protect against propaganda; the US doesn't bother.
I am not sure I follow your point here; could you elaborate?
> I am not sure I follow your point here; could you elaborate?
My point is, the US government doesn't otherwise care much about propaganda, so I doubt that's a motivation here.
Both technical advances (machine learning) and economic advances by other nations (China) put us closer to an even playing field. I would even go so far as to say we're at a disadvantage here relative to China.
Except, as you point out, on the issue of propaganda.
* A large part of the power structure, one of the major political parties, uses and relies on propaganda extenstively. Yes, both parties do it to some degree, but one relies on revving up its supporters with unending, absolute nonsense.
* Big tech doesn't want to be regulated.
(GP) > how it can be used to manipulate narratives
On the domestic side of things, Elon Musk is doing this, to an extreme degree, with X/Twitter. I'm someone that follows mostly left-wing/liberal/progressive accounts, yet I keep seeing tweets on my feed (even in the "For you" timeline) from right-wing accounts (that I don't follow).
It's extremely annoying, and it is plain as day obvious that Elon Musk is trying to use Twitter to push the entire U.S. more so in a right-wing direction.
Some of these unwelcome accounts on my feed are anti-Trump conservatives (i.e. The Lincoln Project variety of conservatives)--and even this seems to be carefully engineered by Musk's Twitter/X. X must have recognized that I have left-wing political views, and decided to show me account of milder conservatives, to try to gently sway me in that direction.
Occasionally though, and especially in tweet replies, I often see replies of extreme conservatives (including the openly white nationalist and anti-Semitic kinds. It's truly horrifying how much these voices are being amplified.
Some of it probably has to do with the fact that X's fee-based "Verified" users are being amplified, and the "Verified" user base skews heavily to the right, since likely only they feel comfortable with paying a monthly fee to a right-wing unhinged billionaire[1].
Elon Musk is running one of the largest social-media propaganda campaigns in recent history. In terms of scale, one could even think of the billions sunk into buying Twitter essentially as political spending, considering how Twitter/X has now been transformed into a giant covert right-wing influence machine.
[1] I do pay for Premium Connectivity on my Telsa (which I purchased before Elon Musk went Peter Thiel-style crazy), but Premium Connectivity is pretty much a necessity for me on a Tesla. I personally find Musk's politics (and generally GOP politics) to be beyond-the-pale vile evil and disgusting, to the point that I might be compelled to hold off on my 3-year-old Cybertruck reservation if the Cybertruck actually ever comes into mass production (at a non-inflated price). But, hopefully, someone like Bernie Sanders wins and we tax billionaires out of existence (for example, if Congress enacts a one-time 90% wealth tax on accumulated assets in excess of $500 million)--that would put to rest my discomfort with buying a new Tesla when Musk still has ownership over a significant chunk over Tesla.....