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Who is 'our' referring to?
Alphabet and Apple? Then its their app store.
TikTok has never been open source.
Tiktok views with #freepalestine tags eclipsed #istandwithisrael by nearly 200 to 1 (videos with pro-Israel views got low single digit millions while videos with pro-Palestine views got nearly 200 times that) and THIS is a better explanation for the panic and why essentially lobbying for the ban of TikTok using China isn't a conspiracy theory (especially since it was discussed by a few US media outlets) and that this really in an attempt to keep young people exposed to an uncensored and unfiltered platform which inevitably causes them to grow more sympathetic with Palestine.
It's censorship disguised as a national security threat for a totally unrelated motivator and once again, I'm disappointed more HN users especially those that have been on this website far longer than me were able to connect with all their wisdom they exude in other areas.
The risk here is China having the ability to sway and manipulate opinions of young minds in US over years by controlling what information they see on a daily basis. That is an extraordinary power which should not be underestimated.
The way it does this is to not show you more of what you have already seen, it is to identify what gets you worked up, and to exploit that by showing you progressively more and more extreme content. It highlights more provocative comments to you that are more likely to make you post an emotional response and engage in a long intense debate that causes more clicks and posts, and feeds more of your emotion back into 'the algorithm'. This is a dangerous spiral which can easily turn somebody who might have a weak opinion on something, into a mouth frothing raged keyboard warrior.
This is very powerful and dangerous, and it is purposely designed like this.
Allowing the Chinese government to have this power over young US minds? Thats what this is all about.
TikTok could be using blind algorithms as you hint at, but they could also bump content they wanted to.
I am convinced that if China put their best minds to it they could use TikTok to sway any election the way they wanted.
The data available to them about what reels swayed what people in what direction is immense.
I think people who know about Israel's involvement in the ban don't mention it here on HN, because many Hasbara are here with the same tired lies, deflection, hatred, racism, and accusations of antisemitism.