TikTok removing posts for violating the "joy of TikTok"

Almost no political junkie I know has changed their view on Trump over the past decade. They'll spend hours a day, sometimes hours a week, focused on him, but it ends up absolutely having no positive impact on their selves or their lives (usually a large negative impact).

Then I ask them about their local politicians, where they stand on certain issues, what their record is, what's been happening with their local government - and they have absolutely no clue. They can't even recall who was running in the previous local primary, or why they voted for who they voted for.

They're wasting countless hours on Trump and national politics because it feels good. Then they won't even spend a fraction learning about things that could actually make an important difference in their voting, because it's too boring for them. Even worse, many people will try to pass off these actions as being virtuous or being informed.

Trump supporters have a very interesting perspective in that they believe Trump to be the ultimate liar. The only people who think trump is honest is, ironically, his opponents.

>Yet those very partisan newspapers created a public that was, by all accounts, far better informed than the public of the 20th century you think was a "golden age".

Are you claiming that the public was better informed in the 19th century than in the 20th? That's a wild claim to make, not least because the former had far worse literacy rates.

That's why I in the second sentence specifically also supposed AI could identify such content.

>That doesn’t mean they don’t have a political bias. It may just not cleanly fall across modern American political party lines. (And it may have changed over time.)

The point is that without actual evidence of political bias going on, actual allegations are a dime a dozen, and shouldn't be taken seriously.

>But this is all theoretical. My stance is that if you are going to allow some political content then you should allow all political content that doesn’t break other rules.

There's no shortage of political content on tiktok, hence why right wingers think there's a left wing bias. There's also no evidence they're trying to cover up ICE raids as a particular topic, only footage of this particular incident that involves violence.

As I said, I don’t understand the question. To understand I would be to know what “best interest” means to you, and in what specific context?

It wouldn't surprise me if the total number of real users, not counting bots and alt accounts, is probably ~1b or less.

> who appeared too ugly, poor or disabled

From the engagement perspective, you'll find that movie stars, social media stars, CEOs, and even politicians (with some famous presidential results [1]) are, nearly without exception, attractive and fit. Why?

[1] https://www.history.com/articles/kennedy-nixon-debates

I don't think it has moved to the new structure yet, or the "all the servers in the US with Oracle control of the algo". Maybe they're just getting ready in advance.

Alternately, a motivated subgroup can often coerce platforms. A lot of platforms will engage such moderation simply because enough people brigaded to flag/report something.

> U.S. officials said in September that China had struck a “framework for a TikTok deal.” However, in the following weeks, China has not confirmed that such a deal was agreed to.

> Many experts believe China’s strategy is to keep talking while making few concrete agreements.

Take free speech, which has certain restrictions in most societies. Some societies draw the lines further than others.

Likewise, when it comes to elections, the election process is controlled to some degree. One can't, for example, broadcast misinformation about mail in ballots, because that would threaten the integrity of the democratic process itself.

There are countless ad absurdum arguments that could be made here, but that one will suffice. Say a foreign entity broadcasts misleading information about mail in ballots as part of a wider campaign to convince certain sections of the population that the post office is changing votes. Would banning that activity change a society from a "free" state to a "controlled" state like some sort of binary switch? Of course not, and typing "Period. End of story" is a completely asinine and amateur argument to support that. Devolution into semantics.

What I'm highlighting is that in most democracies, there is a sacrosanct ring around the democratic process itself - arguably necessary to at least some extent - and in the context of misinformation/state meddling/etc that would fall under the category of "election interference" if a certain bar is cleared. Ideally a high bar, so the red tape is as minimal as possible, but when it comes to state intelligence agencies specifically targeting an election itself, there is not just a coherent argument for it, it's the way it is in most democracies worldwide.