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Comment by gibbitz | Hacker News Reader

If the overall concern is exposure to propaganda, why waste time blocking the holes it comes in through? Wouldn't it just be simpler to educate our citizens to identify propaganda? I would think this would also help to keep the powers that be in this country in Check as well... I find it worrying that we can see how effective propaganda has been at polarizing our country but no one wants to address all propaganda, just the other side's version. If this were to become a basic core competency in our education system, I guess it would undermine advertising as well, but IMO that would be a plus...

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The goal is to guard against wrongthink and ensure that people act and think like their politicians want them to act and think.

On the other hand, give them a framework to think for themselves, expose them to inconvenient perspectives, and this will endanger livelihood of so many powerful opportunistic people.

The propaganda is in controlling the dials/levers of what is seen which gives an artificial sense of prevalence. You can tell any story you want- make elderly people beating up young people trend more and people will think it's a common occurrence.

I think mandatory transparency into the algos is a start but that assumes nobody tampers behind the scenes which would be trivial w/ software.

There's also the propaganda accusation as propaganda.

If TikTok skews young and they have a viewpoint that's different from entrenched power, we can just blame the Chinese.

If they don't want the accusation they shouldn't commingle civilian enterprise with communist party goals.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/chinese-commun...

Edit: They have this and the thousand talents program and then complain that people don't trust them.

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/the-chin...

I'm not worried about the Chinese, they'll be fine.

Just pointing out what a wonderful boogeyman they make if you want to discount the viewpoints of young Americans.

Any left-wing viewpoint that's common on TikTok could probably be spun as "aligning with CCP strategy" if we don't like it.

Meanwhile the US military gets direct access to American schools. Especially in Rural areas.

It’s propaganda all the way down. We now just have someone competing with us on it :)

Should the military not be advertised as a career choice or should China be represented at US schools too?

>Should the military not be advertised as a career choice

I'm not from the US and to me it sounds completely batshit insane to have anything military in the school - career wise information or not. Never in my many years in the education system have I seen anything from the military. Why should I? It is not a recruiting ground (or is it?!). Private enterprise, the military, etc. have absolutely nothing to do in the school system.

And it’s not just that, also they’re up to shit like this:

https://theintercept.com/2023/04/16/georgia-army-national-gu...

So you think that some career information should be withheld?

I think it’s preferred that the “competition” aren’t the country’s geopolitical rivals who would love to see the country weaken if not destroyed.

>If they don't want the accusation they shouldn't commingle civilian enterprise with communist party goals.

I fail to see how this is worse than what most Western countries do on a daily basis. Who pays for schools (especially higher education) in the US? Do they not decide what goes and not goes in the schools? Do SpaceX employees chant "SpaceX SpaceX SpaceX" at every launch or is it "USA USA USA"? As a non-American the US party goals seems way more commingled with civilian enterprises than the Chinese. We are not any better - just different. The sad part is most that say otherwise have not even experienced both systems first-hand, but just go online and talk FUD. Some because they don't know better, some even though they do know better.

> Wouldn't it just be simpler to educate our citizens to...

yeah, maybe we could create a state-controlled social media app to educate via subtle influ-

But seriously if someone has found a strong, repeatable, almost flashcard-like vector for transmitting information to millions, its going to beat your education plan. And even then, even highly educated people are not immune to propaganda.

Or even introduce regulations about foreign influence on social media which should define how the platforms are run.

> Wouldn't it just be simpler to educate our citizens to identify propaganda?

TikTok is currently running a commercial on Twitch (and I assume elsewhere) which shows people explaining what good they themselves are doing and it is "because of TikTok" with a final message that (possibly paraphrasing) says "TikTok Does Good".

The government would not only need to educate their citizens against the lies of capitalism, but their own lies, as well.

Imagine if 350 million people became resistant to the messaging of capitalism?

The world might actually be a better place!

> Wouldn't it just be simpler to educate our citizens to identify propaganda?

Sweet summer child

> Wouldn't it just be simpler to educate our citizens to identify propaganda

That US ruling class would not last long (much like the Chinese and the Russian, etc). The US has been in near continuous war or financing continuous wars for over 70 years. You don’t have to look far to find a citizen who’s lost something dear. And somehow the pattern continues.

Watching some of the WW2 propaganda videos put out by the allies is very eye opening. Our elites have gotten very good at convincing us to fight to further their goals (which only loosely align with the commoners).

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