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Comment by readams | Hacker News Reader

Spying and data collection isn't remotely the main concern. The main concern is control over how Americans consume information.

See e.g. https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing...

"The conclusions of our research are clear: Whether content is promoted or muted onTikTok appears to depend on whether it is aligned or opposed to the interests of the Chinese Government. As the summary data graph below illustrates, the percentages of TikTok posts out of Instagram posts are consistently range-bound for general political and pop-culture topics, but completely out-of-bounds for topics sensitive to the Chinese Government."

It's not even theoretical. This is happening now.

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It's not even just how they promote/mute political topics. Watch Tik Tok videos in China and it's all young people helping the elderly, learning job skills, and doing other socially virtuous things. Watch Tik Tok videos outside of China and it's all videos of kids stealing cars, eating Tide pods, and pranking people in Home Depot.

You can blame the first amendment for that. The first amendment doesn't apply to China, so the Chinese government tells Douyin what content is undesirable and it gets filtered/censored. Is that what you want to happen in the US? Or did you think Douyin was intentionally leaving money on the table due to patriotic fervor?

I'm just speculating, but my guess is it serves both purposes. Filling US youth with destructive stuff is also excellent for engagement. Two birds one stone

Is it the United States' policy to fill middle-eastern youth with lascivious/wanton content, or do social media thirst-trap pictures just have excellent engagement?

In both cases, the operators don't have to actively boost that content, and it also is profitable, so they won't voluntarily remove it until forced to do so (by the government or public).

One could also appeal to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other such sites here. These sites are absolutely filled with 'less than socially valuable' content. Yet when degenerate content also shows up on TikTok it's somehow because of some convoluted Chinese conspiracy. And this conspiracy is presented with absolutely no evidence of merit, instead relying primarily on appeals to prejudice and bias - 'Come on man, don't be stupid - it's China!' The same sort of logic that could be used to make essentially any claim, regardless of its basis in reality.

as Chinese, it is no political, no drug, less gang style music, less sexual video, but not all as you say

I hear this a lot but I'm pretty sure China has mindless social media apps like we do. I think it's called Douyin or something, if you go to https://www.douyin.com/discover you'll even see the tiktok logo. I'm pretty sure you can only watch people help the elderly cross the street so many times before you start looking for something more entertaining.

For example do an internet search for Chinese people live streaming under a bridge. I'm pretty sure these people are not all demonstrating job skills.

Douyin is TikTok but for China. Operated by the same company but with different servers (https://www.bytedance.com/en/products). And i am pretty sure they are effectively telling bytedance to get rid of things that would corrupt the youth (in the governments opinion).

Like they banned effeminate man on TV: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/02/1033687586/china-ban-effemina...

Douyin _is_ the Chinese TikTok.

>Douyin vs TikTok also differs in terms of popular content. The most popular on Douyin is definitely educational content, with videos helping to improve skills and grow personally, while on Tik Tok the most popular is narrating videos, which is a great opportunity for artists, singers, and music producers.

https://marketingtochina.com/differences-between-tiktok-and-...

Douyin is Tik Tok in China. And no they don't, authoritarian governments have quite a bit of leeway in shutting those sorts of things down. While it can be bypassed, the average person isn't going to do it (or get away with it).

You're missing the point. It's not about what content users in a country are uploading to the platform or wanting to consume on the platform, it's which content the algorithm promotes/mutes in a given country based on the wishes of the Chinese government.

If you go to https://www.douyin.com/discover it looks like the same mindless entertainment we see but Chinese people. Maybe they're trying to promote more virtuous content but I'm not seeing it on Chinese TikTok's front page. I scrolled through a few pages and I didn't see anything that would be similar to helping the elderly or job skills. It's certainly not "all" virtuous content like originally claimed.

Are you viewing this from China? The obvious answer seems to be they're just running different filters and scoring based on the location of the device.

No. Are you? Can you screenshot it for me?

No. I don't know whether or not the difference in content is real. All I'm saying that if it were, it would obviously be done by geolocation, and in that case you would still see west-targeted content when visiting Douyin or TikTok; this invalidates the counterpoint I responded to.

This would be an interesting test, although I don't think even a VPN exit node in China is good enough unless your device also feeds bogus GPS coords that show you are in China. I used to do with the Xposed all the time (because apps have no business knowing where I am) but now that Android is so hostile toward root and power users, I don't know how doable it is anymore (though I'd love to hear if someone does).

Your "obvious" claim seems more like a strong assumption, that you know the not only the behavior but the mechanism of douyin based on... Obviousness?

I agree GP should have been a lot more humble in their claim and is not acknowledging the level to which they are speculating, but aside from the untactful approach, location does seem an important point especially for a company as data hungry and adept at mining/using that data as bytedance.

Except that the Douyin operates only in China, you even need a Chinese phone number to register in the page. The Douyin do not aim for consumers outside China. Therefore, why would a website care to create a customized "discover" page for different countries when it have users only from a single country?

Frankly, nowadays it seems like we're just reviving McCarthyism when we talk about China.

"Among adults, those ages 18 to 29 are most likely to say they regularly get news on TikTok. About a third of Americans in this age group (32%) say they regularly get news there"

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/15/more-amer...

This is extremely concerning that perception of current affairs is fed to people using social media.

Why should social media not be a source of news and current affairs?

Not sure if this is sarcasm but the main stream media are basically propaganda. MSNBC, CNN, FOX NEWS, WASH POST, NYT et al.

AIPAC wants Tiktok shut down because it doesn't censor content on Gaza.

> main stream media are basically propaganda

I'm not from US, rarely I have even watched anything from these (MSNBC, CNN, FOX NEWS, WASH POST, NYT) in my life. Blank statement like 'main stream media are basically propaganda' seems wild to me. There are also other 'mainstream media' from US... are those propaganda as well? Like AP? There is bias, sure, but how can you say propaganda?

I read 'main stream media' - not just in English language and content there is not that bad - usually there is delay - which is good, because not everything what is posted is accurate.

Read Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent". Then you'll realize where my "wild" statements are coming from.

Chomsky is an apogolet on Dictaturship. Not at all any credible authority.

Ah, so ad hominem.

Valid reply to "appeal to authority", no?

Noam Chomsky criticizes the US press in the book for being a mouth piece for government propaganda. e.g. Judith Miller, New York Times on the WMDs in Iraq. etc etc.

Why does his views on Dictatorship make his critique of the press invalid? Isn't that like saying every criticism of Israel by a non-Jewish person is anti-semitic, no?

Operation Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

Yeah pretty "wild" I know, but true.

True? This is a conspiracy theory.

Because Wikipedia says so? or you have a credible source, explanation?

That whitepaper compares the counts of posts in a set of (arbitrarily chosen) hashtags to Instagram. All it proves is that the ratio of posts between these hashtags is different between TikTok and Instagram.

Their findings are unrelated to whether content is promoted or muted, they only look at post count. They don't even determine that it isn't Instagram that is biased (as they only compare the ratios), and these differences can pretty easily be attributed to different userbases.

They never explain how they chose hashtags that are compared, which could potentially be biased.

This isn't to say that TikTok isn't doing these things. This PDF just doesn't prove anything, and its claims are overstated.

See the discussion from this whitepaper was posted to HN at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38754653

I think you're somewhat missing the idea here. It's _not_ saying that China-sensitive topics are less popular on TikTok than Insta. It's saying that the difference between TikTok and Insta is _hugely greater_ for China hot-button issues than it is for other topics.

It doesn't really matter how the hash tags are chosen; the fact that this is uniformly true, by a lot, for all the obvious hash tags you might pick is damning evidence.

So China sells its point so well that all the numerous tools and huge amounts of money that the United States also has to propagate its point of view and guarantee its own soft power has difficulty competing with a single Chinese tool, and this within its own territory? Or perhaps the problem is that they don't want a Chinese social network to have access and control over people's data, but neither they want to pass laws to protect people privacy like what EFF proposes because the American government also do not want to forfeit the access and control over people's data?

A) china doesn't let American companies operate freely in China.

B) The united states doesn't _do_ state owned media in the United States. Even PBS and NPR are independent.

A) China never claimed that it operates under a free market. Neither bully other countries if they do not behave as they dictate that a free market should be.

B) Does not matter: it is not owning media that USA spreads its propaganda and soft power.

I agree that PBS and NPR aren't state-owned, but there surely needs to be a third option between state-owned and independent when they get funding from that source. Economic incentives can be some of the most powerful incentives and need to be clearly acknowledged.

>B) The united states doesn't _do_ state owned media in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America

“ Its targeted and primary audience is non-American.”

Please people stop posting that "study" or at least read it before you take any conclusions from it. Good god it's terrible science.

Like even if it's not obvious to you how using Instagram as a "reference" for hashtags is not a good baseline it still doesn't mean anything in terms of how the content is spread because how are you going to detect algorithmic boosting and suppression by counting user generated content? A million posts with #cheesetastesbad could get less actual views than ten posts with #pro-cheese. And this is before accounting for vastly different tagging culture between social networks and different users entirely.

https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/the-truth-about-tiktok-has...

> Blunt comparisons of hashtags is severely flawed and misrepresentative of the activity on TikTok.

> It’s critical to understand that hashtags on the platform are created and added to videos by content creators, not TikTok. Millions of people in regions such as the Middle East and South East Asia account for a significant proportion of views on hashtags. Therefore, there’s more content with #freepalestine and #standwithpalestine and more overall views. It is easy to cherry pick hashtags to support a false narrative about the platform.

TikTok could be completely totally bold-faced evil and this study still wouldn't be good evidence of it.

IIRC, they did not even bother to align the dates when comparing hashtags, i.e. this includes many instagram posts from before TikTok existed.

Fundamentally, users should not use closed propertiary blackbox communication platforms I guess. But that is not the critique.

The report is quite bad. There is no sensitivity analysis at all. Their methodology does not track bias but user base. I would discard it as a lobbyist hit piece.

Another way of going about it would be to require transparent algorithms.

Any mass media platform could be problematic regardless of who owns it.

Policy makers have clearly spoken: If China wants US citizen data, they should buy it from data brokers like everyone else!

I'm glad this is the top comment. I see this misconception in every conversation about this issue.

Has this report been peer-reviewed or published in a reputable journal? Otherwise I would just dismiss it as more pro-regime propaganda from another American think tank.

Are you saying anything anti-china is pro-us-regime?

No, it doesn't look like they said that.

Or it shows US platforms like instagram is thoroughly infiltrated by US propaganda. Or antiPRC people aren't likely on TikTok in the first place. Or how US misinformation networks can't be weaponized on TikTok in the same way as western owned platforms staffed by US ex intelligence. Both in it's abillity to inject narrative or control narrative of others. For all we know, TikTok is the baseline of global sentimentality and Instagram is anomolie of US influence operations. Is TikTok aligned to PRC interests, or neutral but only seeingly aligned because TikTok is simply not specifically aligned to US interests like other US platforms. Ultimately it's the latter that's the problem for US ability to shape narrative.

Point blank - why not allow Facebook, Google, and WhatsApp operate in China without governmental interference?

If ByteDance can operate their platform in the US, then Meta and Alphabet should as well.

Straight up - because domestic players operate with government interferance. Which comes with onerous moderation overheads and compliance costs. Why should western platforms have competitive advantage of... not?

Like this is simple as hell. Why should western platforms not follow onerous PRC compliance that PRC companies have to follow?

Bytedance operates with respect to US law. If US wants reciprical PRC arrangement, like US platforms operate in PRC, they can legislate to force Bytedance to have local proxy like Oracle, or divest. The former fell apart. TikTok move to silo US data out of PRC... but still accused of retaining access. As if Microsoft in PRC is completely siloed. Regardless, until then, Bytedance is going to abuse the full extent of US law, including 1st amendment challenges. Then it's on Bytedance to comply or withdrawl. They'll likely do the latter and PRC retaliation will be calibrated on whether TikTok is just gone from US or world via app store bans.

Fair enough! Sorry for being a bit snippy - there have been some weird takes on both sides of this, so I have a bit of a short fuse.

> Microsoft in PRC is completely siloed

MS China (or at least Azure and all their Enterprise SaaS offerings) are a reskin around Tencent Cloud and Tencent's Enterprise SaaS offerings.

Most American Enterprise SaaS Vendors won't sell their product directly in China as Chinese IP Law around Software Patents is a bit unfriendly to foreign offerings.

It has lead to the development is a pretty cool domestic Enterprise SaaS market in China though, and has had a positive downstream impact such as with KubeAdmiral.

IMO, a western Open Core startup would have an easier time targeting the Chinese market as you can create two different enterprise SKUs - one for China and one for the rest - and not have to worry about IP Law hassles.

It's honestly incredibly lucky for us that the Chinese propagandists couldn't resist pulling the bias trigger over issues that don't really matter. Talk about keeping your powder dry.

They could easily have pretended TikTok was a neutral actor until they needed to sway US opinion over Taiwan (or something bigger). Instead they made the control obvious on a dozen issues and are going to get cut off way earlier.

Having travelled across Asia, TikTok has definetly played a major role in helping build Chinese soft power.

Vietnam for example is fairly anti-China due to memories of the Sino-Vietnamese War, the PRC's support of the Khmer Rouge (edit: spelling), and the South China Sea dispute, but in my experience views among the younger generation have started to trend towards a Chinese view of the world because of TikTok.

South Korea and Japan still have massive soft power in the region, yet products like TikTok are definetly undermining it.

It's also been a huge part of why Gen Z skews extremely anti-Israel, IMO. There is a _massive_ anecdotal gap between TikTok users and people of the same age who avoid it in my experience.

(not to say that criticism of Israel's handling of the war isn't valid, of course)

Do you think that Hamas (or supporting countries) has successfully been using psyops/propoganda?

Anti-Israel skew is not being driven by government interests. Well, except for multiple hamfisted footguns by Israel (where their influence has backfired causing harm to Israel).

I think it's other actors (China, Russia) who are driving discord in the rest of the world, including stoking the fires in the middle east.

Small nitpick: Khmer Rouge*

Doh! Fixed.

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