Tiktok became a bigger national security risk after being sold than it was before.
The impact the Chinese government can have on an individual American is minor compared to the US govt and the same goes for the American and Chinese govts on the average Chinese person.
Nothing a tin-foil hat can't prevent
As if the public needed any manipulation. You can just read what actual public figures, journalists, and such have been openly saying for the last 15-20 years...
When a long-time political player, wife of a President, and presidential candidate calls a big chunk of the population "deplorables", when opposing candidates call for the jailing or even shooting of their opponent, or when the current President is saying what he says and doing what he does, you need more to get "chaos" and "distrust of the neighbor"?
[0] https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/NCRI-Report_-...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43vxbytjDSM&themeRefresh=1
It's no secret they do this, they openly discuss it. The things they want can differ but they want to convince you of things. That's obvious.
What makes the game easy for political adversaries (both foreign and domestic) is they don't need to convince the public of a certain thing, they just drive contention. What many people call "engagement". You can see this in 2016 with Russia doing things like forming Facebook groups to spur on protests along with groups to organize counter protests to the protest they helped create. They're not trying to make you pro Russia or pro communist so much as just cause America to be chaotic, ensuring people care less when they do things like invade Ukraine. You also see it in the current administration which, developing the belief in a deep state and saying crazy things left and right so that nothing is to be believed and you're constantly distracted. While we're all talking about Greenland we're not talking about Epstein. Every week it's something new. Even Bannon discussed this strategy early on: throw a million things at them and they'll only be able to focus on a few. It's no surprise this creates chaos and confusion. We argue about the things not being discussed as if it's hidden information rather than logistic overload but there's also not a meaningful difference
The point isn't to convince you, it's to make you exhausted and apathetic
I don't really have respect for this idea; we do this to ourselves far more effectively than people who frankly have a pretty hamfisted cultural understanding- just as we have of china or russia.
IMO influence over real concrete choices is much more alarming. Someone with household-level information has an insane amount of advantage in an election. You can target politcal messaging street by street to play up the worst aspects of your opposed candidate and the least repulsive aspects of your own candidate.
But if you're in china, the most you can do is try to push towards whatever of the two candidates is least bad for you. And spoiler, zero american politicians are pro-china.
America has been trying to spread it's way of life for a hundred years. People liked the fridges and cars but never cared much for the Christianity and croony capitalism.
..Other than, well possibly, Trump. Maybe not directly, but the Tiktok deal, withdrawing from the TPP, the eventual outcome of the trade war, the praise for Xi—all stands to benefit China at the expense of the US.
> I don't really have respect for this idea; we do this to ourselves far more effectively than people who frankly have a pretty hamfisted cultural understanding- just as we have of china or russia.
The two need not be mutually exclusive.
Yes there were very active causes and groups in the US to correct this issue, but that outside pressure forced leadership to be nudged towards corrective action and I wonder if the USSR hadn't been there would we have gotten Civil Rights legislation passed when we did?
Maybe the same will happen with China showing the US how fast they can get stuff done and what they provide as benefits to their citizens vs a declining US. Already TikTok has helped Gen-Z realize how Israel gets so many benefits (universal healthcare, college tuition, benefits for birthing kids etc.) while the US is in massive debt and continues to send money to Israel. That continued propaganda may lead to an eventual backlash and subsequent reform.
The real challenge to this is that most Chinese apps aren't in English.
ICE are fighting hard to change this.
I agree with this completely but I think we all need to avoid the idea that the danger of mass surveillance plays out at the personal level.
The Chinese government can do basically nothing with your individual personal data but if they have the personal data of tens millions of individuals then it suddenly becomes way easier to do things like influencing elections.
As far as I can tell at least among the American left, criticism of israel has become so commonplace and part of the culture that its become a "memeable" event at this point.
I wonder how the Israel lobby will manage to turn that ship around at this point?
The effect of popular criticism of Israel in the US has been the normalization of mass censorship and deportation, and nil on Israeli policy or American support for it (other than being the catalyst for killing Kamala Harris' campaign.) The ship doesn't need to be turned around, it continues on its course unabated.
Last I heard Trump intends to pave Gaza over and sell the land for data centers to the Saudis.
>Last I heard Trump intends to pave Gaza over and sell the land for data centers to the Saudis.
Honestly anything is possible. Maybe they will continue unabated and finish their project before Trump kicks the can. Maybe this upcoming Iran 'adventure' will be a massive disaster and will lead to a step change in hatred of Israel and anyone who supports them. I just dont see any of the old propaganda used in Iraq working this time around.
Maybe Israel completes their complete expulsion of Palestinians and then forms a solid base as the center of the middle east with everyone else being a vassal state. Would they even need the US at that point?