Hacker News Reader

Comment by professor_v | Hacker News Reader

So how do we ensure that Tiktok doesn't covertly alter the algorithm to subtly include propaganda tailored to China's geopolitical interests that are detrimental to the US? Or even just propaganda tailored to enhance internal strife to weaken the country?

View on HN

As a European I have to ask the very same questions about US apps and European interests.

Even though I personally do not harbour strong suspicions towards the US, it's not a given that the US will always act favourably towards the EU, Europe as a whole, or any one particular EU country in the future. Especially in light of recent elections.

As a US citizen I would support your right to limit facebook/twitter/etc exposure to your citizens, especially with the incoming administration. That's why I think it's also appropriate for the US to oppose a adversarial government injecting propaganda here, especially to our most vulnerable to it.

Europe should ban American social media companies. They'd be doing themselves a favor, and a favor to most Americans as well (who, shareholders excepted, do not personally benifit from these tech corps being so massive.)

I think every country should develop their own social media. It would be best if it was federated-like services that smaller countries could just run the plain open source version of.

Any democratic country that has a large portion of their population using american social media is essentially a modern US colony.

> I think every country should develop their own social media.

There is Mastodon already, which is federated. EU already set up their own servers.

It is federated and it has benefits but the UX is garbage for average people and the actual protocol isn't one that'll scale.

You don't need an A+ protocol to get great if your product is good enough / dead simple to use but neither of those things apply to Mastodon, as much as I'd like them to.

I don't see how Mastodon's UX is worse than the one of Twitter, which is good enough, judging by the number of users.

That would result in a domino effect that would inevitably result in the internet being segregated by nationality.

The walled gardens would be. On the other hand it would likely drive interoperability.

Add Tiktok to those as well. In fact it should be the first one banned along with Meta.

Good observation and argument. US politicians might be in for a rude surprise, if this effort to ban boomerangs on them, in the form of other countries making the same arguments and wanting to ban popular American made and controlled software.

I think this is a positive. We should be happy other countries reducing the tentacle lengths of US social media vorps (or Chinese social media like tiktok)

Joe Biden cannot call up facebook and tell them to show everyone on Instagram ponies tomorrow.

However, if Xi Jinping calls up Bytedance and tells them to show everyone ponies tomorrow, your tiktok feed will infact be all ponies tomorrow.

The revelations from the twitter files show that this is true. Social media works in tandem with US Federal Agencies to review what people see or don't.

and checks and balances allowed it to eventually come out, even though i think facebook knew they could fight it in court. In China that is not an option, Xi and his circle say is what happens with no recourse other than a straight up rebellion by the people of China.

You'd be surprised on how much government has their hands in US big tech companies.

Via various incentives and regulation, they kind of can

Which can be openly discussed, critiqued, etc. Or in the case of X, bought up by a private citizen and turned into a completely different animal. There's important and significant similarities, but they are worlds apart.

this is the exact same question being asked around the global - how could you be sure that American made LLMs are not altered in a way to maximize US interests at the costs of everyone else's.

Or like, movies?

> The agreement was seen as a way to "spread the American way of life" though a war-torn France (and Europe at large)

> To further the cultural propagation effect of the Blum–Byrnes agreements, the informational Media Guaranty Program was established in 1948 as part of the Economic Cooperation Administration to "guarantee that the US government would convert certain foreign currencies into dollars at attractive rates, provided the information materials earning the moneys reflected appropriate elements of American life".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blum%E2%80%93Byrnes_agreemen...

There's also the agreement where movie studies can use real war machines as props, provided they agree to make the US military forces appear heroic, noble and victorious.

And they'll have the same choice to make. That they can make this choice shouldn't alter whether the US makes the choice on it's own merits.

You cannot. But in US you have elections every 4 years wheres in Russia or China both Putin and Xi are "elected" for their lifetime. Does it tell you anything ?

And both parties are almost exactly the same with foreign policy.

The "two-party system" in the U.S. is perhaps broken beyond repair, and presents an illusion of choice in many ways rather than an actual choice.

I was referring to "how could you be sure that American made LLMs are not altered in a way to maximize US interests at the costs of everyone else's."

But your answer intelligently redirecs focus to different topic. Is it on purpose ?

May you precise your thoughts? I genuinely didn’t get the supposedly evident message before “Does it tell you anything ?”

The bipartisan system in the US show that free and regular elections isn’t enough to prevent some dictatorship drawbacks, like when policies are made to serve a party and not the population interest. They don’t often coincide.

To come back to LLM that could be an alteration to favor one party or another, or even both by occulting what people don’t like in the party system.

At the end it might be "good for US” with US as an organisation which want to preserve itself. But not "good for US” as US a group of citizen wanting a system that serve their interest.

I wasn't responding to any upthread point you might have made about LLMs, I was responding to your suggestion that U.S. is more democratic than China. I don't see much of a difference, and if anything there's a very real possibility the two-party system allows people in charge of policy to distract from many issues with partisan politics.

Both parties are the same with how they cater to the wealthy and the capitalist class. Compared to China where there is one party, sure, but elected officials arguably work more directly for the working class.

Spoken like someone with absolutely no experience of living in China. Peak HN.

The world doesn’t elect US presidents. We are referring to the relationship of non-US citizen to US elected officials. The intra US selection of officials doesn’t matter in this context of who sits on a higher moral horse.

it's the same in the USA as it is elsewhere. you just have the illusion of picking someone here.

> But in US you have elections every 4 years

That is why populism is always the winner.

I don't like Xi, I won't support anyone to be in power for life. That being said, I'd pick Xi over losers and criminals like Trump at any day.

How do you know that Xi is not criminal ? His decisions "affected" (read: killed or thrown in jail) thousands or tens of thousands people (more ?).

Xi is just Trump without the idiocy.

Chinese national living in China, I am openly anti-CCP, I don't like Xi. I can write a thesis on this, but let's just cut to the bones -

12 years in power, Xi led China to become the largest industrialised nation on earth with its industrial output larger than the G7 combined, Xi led China to be in leading roles in ALL emerging sectors, e.g. mobile internet, renewable energy, Evs, AI etc when the entire EU and Japan just gave up.

What that 6 times bankruptcy Trump managed to achieve? Trump should be nice to Xi, as Xi is the only statesman of Trump's time, Trump is just a reality show host getting into a renewed season of his show.

Xi accomplished a lot when he felt some restraints internally and externally- as those restraints have fallen away and he's been unleashed to do as he will, his 'touch' has faded alongside.

Stopped reporting real economic numbers as they've gotten bad, losing influence in his neighborhood as he's tried to steal control over the surrounding ocean, state owned/controlled enterprises being unfairly promoted extinguishing vital home-grown entrepreneurial sprit and a variety of other avoidable ills.

Unconstrained power will always expose one's weaknesses and unearned verities. Trump's second term will be an interesting pushback to see if any of these exposed Xi weaknesses cause a real crisis inside China.

Simple - no one asked you to use American LLMs. The same way no one asked you to rely on America to power your defence forces.

What’s funny is nothing could be worse for our country than post war US foreign policy. Check out the wikipedia article on US foreign interventions. We don’t need China to fuck us up by subtly sending messages, we have our entire political establishment overtly doing it every day in DC.

"U.S. bad so just ignore outside influence". Can you imagine a world where both should be taken seriously? Or are you just here to minimize?

Our official policy is to bankrupt our country by medaling in the affairs of everyone else, how could their “influence” possibly be any worse?

You don't see how subordinating a country to another's goals could be worse than policy you disagree with?

I don’t see how some nebulous speculation about the influence of ideas that could then potentially lead to a bad outcome is a relevant conversation when we’re actively perpetually destroying ourselves from within on a daily basis no.

so in answer to my question - no you can't even imagine both could be bad. Your talking points sound very tankie so I guess nuance isn't to be expected.

Then create a bill that targets this specifically. Does this same concern not exist for Yandex? Alibaba?

So if you can't control something, ban it for everyone. Got it.

Do you really think TikTok has more power in the US than the local oligarchs and warlords? Short-form video does more to "internal strife" than the lack of basic government services, widespread substance abuse and state violence?

Littering is against the law despite murders going unsolved ~50% of the time.

TikTok doesn't have to be the greatest threat of all time to be subject to regulation around its ownership or behavior. Other problems can be addressed too. It's not like the entire country can only do one thing at a time.

Why are you changing the subject?

They directly addressed your question.

No, they went on a tangent about whether regulating something necessarily means you can't regulate something unrelated.

I asked whether the person I responded to actually have the beliefs they expressed, i.e. that the threat of internal strife in the US is in the future and comes from services like TikTok. Some people say things like that to practice loyalty to the tyranny they suffer under, while other people do it because they believe in it. To clear it up matters, because such reasons indicate whether someone is reachable through reasonable discourse or not.

Traditional media is dead in the US. Joe Rogan dwarfs media midgets like CNN, in both ratings and shear influence. Most of this new media is still using platforms based in the US or friendly nations, but that balance of power could shift very quickly. The rapid rise of TikTok shows that the dominance of American platforms cannot be taken for granted, and so the government is reacting in a bipartisan manner to this threat.

CNN has billions of dollars in yearly revenue, as does NYT. Has Rogan ever had more than fifty million in a year?

His show is not revolutionary or dissident in the least, he isn't at all politically or socially motivated.

How about this: maybe the restrictions and threat of ban on TikTok is about the CLOUD Act and unfettered, secret access to personal data?

I don’t know who specifically you mean by “local oligarchs and warlords”. Do I think TikTok has more power and influence in the US than the average Fortune 500 CEO? Without a doubt.

Why do you bring up "Fortune 500" CEO:s? They only administrate businesses, they don't own them, unlike oligarchs.

When you read that quote, you can't think of anyone that would fit? You don't come to think of the Kochs, Clintons, Trumps, Musks, Obamas, Sacklers, Murdochs, Bidens and so on?

No, and even with those names listed out I don't really understand what category you're pointing at. Your list includes the sitting president and president-elect of the country, who do of course have quite a lot of power. Do I think that TikTok has more power than Rupert Murdoch? Probably not, Murdoch owns a wider variety of media even if he doesn't have any single dominant app. More power than Richard Sackler or Bill Clinton? Again, yes, without a doubt.

As a myth- and truth-maker I'm sure Bill Clinton outweighs TikTok by a huge margin. Compare speaking out against his recent theocratic and genocidal outbursts with speaking out against some stuff on TikTok, one can get you fired from middle class positions of authority, like teaching at universities, the other is perfectly safe unless it also goes against US elites.

I don't know what "theocratic and genocidal outbursts" you're referring to, but it's completely untrue that criticizing Bill Clinton can get you fired from teaching at a university. I'm not sure where you could have gotten the idea that it's rare or dangerous to criticize politicians in the US.

You should listen to his campaign speech in Dearborn, and later he went to a conference and basically said that the palestinians deserve to be exterminated because Arafat left the Camp David talks.

Over the last year many US academics and students have been abused because they openly dissent with or protest against the warlords in charge.

And basically said that the palestinians deserve to be exterminated

By "basically said" you mean that this is your hyperbolic/moralistic interpretation of what he said.

But not what he actually said.

“All [young people in America] know that a lot more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis. And I tell them what Arafat walked away from".

Extremely callous and nasty.

Interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZtuF_etO4o

Here you can hear an expert comment on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr1qrbMg1tA

But not "Palestinians deserve to be exterminated".

That's just a weird, semantic distortion.

You honestly sound paranoid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com