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Comment by fogzen | Hacker News Reader

The U.S. government has not publicly presented any concrete evidence showing that TikTok has actually been used to influence US public opinion in line with CCP policy.

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If I was a foreign government I would promote division. For the left promote anti-center truth. For the right, anti-center truth. For the center, anti-wing truth. Recommendation systems do this automatically, they are inherently anti-social. This power needs to be controlled domestically were we can force changes to algorithms if needed.

How about just letting the user choose, instead of foisting your own idea of 'right' on them.

If I was the US blessed feed, let me have it. If I wasn't the Chinese maintained one, why not.

Or, even better, let me make my own! Or use one from an open source that I, the user, trusts.

Hell, EXPOSE THE ALGORITHMS. The simple fact that we can't see the weights, or measure inputs to outputs, means we are in total control of whomever currently holds the reins, and they can literally play God behind the scenes if they have control over enough eyeballs.

Wasn't there something about the algorithm pushing brainrot to US audiences while Chinese users got more educational/high quality content? Turning Americans stupid might count.

They said "concrete evidence". Have we also considered that US consumers seek out brainrot, so the algorithm gives them what they want? How is that different from any other US-owned social media?

>Turning Americans stupid might count.

Don't need tiktok for that. Besides, a certain party prefers it that way.

Tribalism is part of the brainrot. Divide and conquer. To paraphrase Carlin, wealth and power are are big club and we ain't in it.

China has media laws that would make much of what appears on any sort of Western media platform illegal, so they're obviously going to get a very different experience in China. From anything that might violate social ethics, to clickbait titles - all illegal in China. They've even cracked down on overly effeminate men - 'girly guns' [1] and a million other things I'm not listing here. Basically Western style social media simply is impossible there.

In any case, entirely Western oriented platforms also push brainrot to Western viewers, so I don't think there's any conspiracy so much as just cultural differences.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niang_pao

China is less interested in turning Americans into carriers of the red banner, and more interested in sowing political discord and instability. Just like Russia was doing in 2016, creating faux Bernie rallies and organizing them across the street from faux Trump rallies.

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