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Comment by fluidcruft | Hacker News Reader

Things can be manipulated without being removed. This sort of word substitution is the type of misdirection "never squarely denies" could be referencing. They're asked about manipulation and they reply about removal. Removal is merely one type of manipulation. For example something like permanently hiding content while keeping it in the database isn't a removal.

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"We are not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government."

It is laughable to suggest that the basis for this ruling is anything less than fear and paranoia about Chinese government softpower. Nothing they could have said, and no fact they could bring to bear, would change the outcome of the court, which has been predetermined, for better or worse, by the current American political climate.

Search tiananmen on any app and then on TikTok. It is ridiculous that China can block all these sites but the US can't block TikTok

    Facebook (and Messenger)
    Instagram
    Pinterest
    Twitter
    Blogger
    Tumblr
    Tinder
    Blogspot    
    New York Times
    The Financial Times
    The Economist
    The Wall Street Journal
    Bloomberg
    Google News
    Wikipedia
    YouTube
    Netflix
    Vimeo
    Google Search
    Bing
    Yahoo
    DuckDuckGo
    Messenger (and Facebook)
    WeChat
    SnapChat
    Telegram
    Signal

I'm no fan of TikTok but this is a really shitty argument.

China can do it because China doesn't have the First Amendment, which is, you know, sort of the whole point...

But in practice, that means the only global social network—one that is accessible in both the US and in China—is one that agrees to Chinese censorship laws. IMO, this is a massive backfire to the purpose of freedom of speech.

paradox of intolerance rears it's head up again.

Yes? That’s how it works. Because as soon as you act like the enemy, you’re no different from them.

An America without TikTok is still vastly more free than China. Our constitution is not a suicide pact.

Isn't there a totally separate TikTok for China?

>TikTok, whose mainland Chinese and Hong Kong[3] counterpart is Douyin,[a][4] is a short-form video hosting service (...)

>While TikTok and Douyin share a similar user interface, the platforms operate separately.[28][4][29] Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people's faces for more videos of them, along with other features such as buying, booking hotels, and making geo-tagged reviews.[30]

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

So I think even TikTok (app for non-China markets) isn't available in China.

Yep, liberalism is hard. More breaking news at 10.

Plenty of countries don't have the First Amendment that are still liberal democracies that adhere to more or less free trade principles. The PRC does it because they are totalitarian State subject to the control of the Communist Party of China and their censorship regime does not stop at the border:

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

Do Americans really have a 1st amendment anymore?

If social media sites had identity proofing (e.g. IAL2) and you can definitely say who is saying what - then you can talk

A) About “Americans”

B) Freedom of Speech

If TikTok bans a post from user846859347 which American’s freedom of speech are we talking about. 98.65% of shit on TT is bot-generated propaganda and removing it isn’t violating anyone’s freedom of speech

Yes, which is why you hear them unabashedly complaining about their government nonstop.

Compared to China? Absolutely. Ask Gedhun Choekyi Nyima

That's a hell of a lot of milieu control. Seems they are just trying to prevent an understanding and ultimately a blending of cultures and are effectively controlling language and therefore the people's world view.

... yes...

Oh no, fear and paranoia about a dictatorial regime with extrajudicial police stations in the US to hunt down family members of domestic political dissidents putting media in front of our children's eyes 24/7 while walking around our streets with space age sensor arrays! Oh no! So unjustifiably fearful!

Who could possibly take issue with such a technology!

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