The reason for the US government banning TikTok is not that TikTok is a worse product (it is superior).
The reason is that it is a massive geopolitical risk.
People often conflate these two.
The reason is that it is a massive geopolitical risk.
People often conflate these two.
There is no good side in this debate.
The attacker in the 2015 OPM hack acquired biometric data on every federal government employee. Cross referencing against biometrics collected at ports-of-entry unmasked covert US operations, undermined US interested and put the lives of Americans abroad at risk. This information is valuable to every adversary equipped to use it.
The scandal of Tiktok is that rather than breaching OPM, a foreign entity has simply requested this information directly from future federal employees. Beyond mere facial biometrics, tiktok knows the childhood street address of ~every future spy -- and everyone near and dear to them. Tiktok can generate a psychological profile on ~every future diplomat and international businessman. And the biometrics they can access includes things like sleeping habits, gait, vocal chord structure, vocabulary, and accent -- much more than the OPM hackers got.
It can't look like obvious propaganda; people wouldn't use it. It doesn't have to convince people of any one thing to work anyway. Just shortening the average attention span would be enough to weaken a society a little. How about increasing polarization? People produce plenty of polarizing content on their own; just favor that a little more than an algorithm merely trying to be addictive does. Antisocial and self-destructive behaviors should also get a subtle algorithmic boost. Aggrandizing the platform itself is harmful as well - if someone chooses to be an influencer instead of a scientist, damage is done.
If those all sound like things most social media does, that's the point. It's like popularizing a junk food that's just a little higher in sugar, fat, and salt than the rest. Harmful elements of social media are harder to measure than that though.
Imo, the way that some have instrumentalized Western social media for disinformation is a bigger threat than allowing a competitor
TikTok is a bit different though, I think they were able to capture the audience and put them in correct bubbles, so if you want to just watch your funny memes, you won't see anything else. But looking at my friend's feeds, they see the opposite - extremely polarizing political content from all the possible sides of the spectrum. It looks like IG Reels has started to eat their lunch, but time will show.
I'm not so sure. People are putting up with a lot of bullshit. Not saying that is due to social media though.
Honestly this whole thing reeks of the satanic panic type moral scares of the 80’s or the anti communist rhetoric of the 60’s repackaged in new form. Moral panic over something or other is an American tradition; right now it’s tiktok but god knows why.
Set yourself a reminder to come back to this comment in 10 years once the fervor has died down and you will read your own comments with bafflement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
"Using what it called "behavioral microtargeting" the company indicated that it could predict "needs" of subjects and how these needs may change over time. Services then could be individually targeted for the benefit of its clients from the political arena, governments and companies, providing "a better and more actionable view of their key audiences."