Should TikTok Be Banned in the US?

[Phi for All]

The CEO of TikTok appeared before Congress yesterday to defend his platform, which has over 150M US users.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tiktok-ceo-face-tough-questions-support-us-ban-grows-2023-03-23/

Democrats and Republicans seemed equally out for blood, and equally unqualified to fairly judge the popular app. Meta and Facebook hired an outside firm for a smear campaign against TikTok, and to me it looks like the committee members have all received lobbying funds from the Big Tech firms to incentivize banning this pesky competitor. Some of the questions asked were phenomenally stupid ("Does TikTok access the home wi-fi network?" asked Rep Richard Hudson from NC), and showed that the legislators were fear-mongering and had no idea what they were talking about. 

Compared to Twitter and Facebook, TikTok (in my experience) seems more upbeat and positive. The younger generations are embracing it and turning away from the other platforms. To me, it seems like the Big Tech companies want to (ab)use the government to squash an upcoming competitor and blame it on political reasoning. It seems to me they hate that this newcomer is taking away market share and most of their future products/customers. 

I've had the app for several months and enjoy it, so I'm pretty biased in favor of keeping it. Does anyone think TikTok should be banned in the US?

[iNow]

Two primary risks:

• Data collection on behaviors of US residents, and this goes beyond just how the app gets used but also includes mining of other private personal details from the phone more broadly (location services, transactions, lots of stuff that should be protected, but isn't in countries like China)
   
• The ability to feed us toward certain content and basically free propaganda distribution device. They feed their own teens on TikTok content for science and math and our teens here content on hating each other and butt chugging vodka

I'm reluctant to ban due to the number of users making their primary income from this as their business platform, but tend to support localizing data and datacenter activity to US (or nations with better user protection laws like the EU)

Edited March 24, 2023 by iNow

[Phi for All]

21 minutes ago, iNow said:

The ability to feed us toward certain content and basically free propaganda distribution device. They feed their own teens on TikTok content for science and math and our teens here content on hating each other and butt chugging vodka

In my experience, the algorithm feeds you more of what you engage with, so I'm unsure how to respond when someone says TikTok is feeding their teen butt chugging vodka videos. Could it be that Chinese culture itself pushes their teens to be interested in science and math, and American culture pushes our teens towards substance abuse, guns, and hating different people?

[John Cuthber]

If the USA and Capitalism are so great, they don't need to ban tiktok.
They just need to launch a better platform- made in the good old U S of A.

 

[Phi for All]

32 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

If the USA and Capitalism are so great, they don't need to ban tiktok.
They just need to launch a better platform- made in the good old U S of A.

Facebook spent billions on Reels, which is short video format, and instead of pouring even more money into it, which appears to have worked with YouTube, Zuckerberg chose to spend that money lobbying and smearing the competition instead. 

One of my favorite TikTok stories is about a woman who'd lived with chronic illness for over a decade, and her doctors weren't sure what exactly was wrong with her, but had her on some expensive medications that only helped a bit. She joined TikTok for other reasons, but ended up posting videos about her daily struggles. Eventually she realized the app was pushing videos about Lyme disease from other creators, and she wondered why. When she watched their content, she recognized her own symptoms. She got a different doctor who confirmed the diagnosis and treated her successfully.

The platform also challenges what Americans see and hear about themselves. This morning I watched a journalist from India talking about the US Department of State releasing the latest Human Rights Report, where the US evaluates every other country in the world so we can determine how much foreign aid to give them. We don't list ourselves, of course, since we aren't giving ourselves foreign aid, but we do judge others using criteria we ourselves would fail. US citizens are pretty blind to how much our rights are trampled on. This kind of looking in the mirror isn't very popular with conservatives, who think our children would feel bad about themselves if they knew half the appalling things we as a society have done in the past and continue to do today.

[iNow]

10 hours ago, Phi for All said:

In my experience, the algorithm feeds you more of what you engage

That’s definitely part of it, but engineers tune the algorithm toward and away specific things. It’s not purely steered by user choice alone. They can code it so different types of content get weighted more or less for different user demographics (like where you live, what type of device you’re on, your age, etc.).

Same basic idea was shared here a few weeks back and there’s data supporting this:

 

 

I take notice 

[MigL]

Usually I'm against banning any source of information.
It should be up to the user to educate themselves as o the validity of that information.

That being said, it is used by a majority of young people ( or those like Phi who wish they still were ), and the Chinese have been known to be untrustworthy with regard to information gathering and spreading disinformation.

Why not use it as leverage ?
TikTok won't be banned if China allows one of our Western news platforms, say the BBC to keep it neutral, through their firewall.

[iNow]

8 hours ago, MigL said:

Why not use it as leverage ?
TikTok won't be banned if China allows one of our Western news platforms, say the BBC to keep it neutral, through their firewall.

That’s a mighty short lever. We could immediately remove 100% of US TikTok users today and China would’ve even notice, wouldn’t even flinch.

Feels a bit like trying to convince a brown bear not to eat you by offering it a Tic-Tac. 

Side thought: TikToks sounds like Tic-Tacs. Language is fun. 

[npts2020]

Isn't it interesting (and pathetic) that in the "Land of the Free" we are constantly talking about banning things? I don't see where the spread of misinformation and propaganda is a legitimate concern in a country that allows its broadcasters on the airwaves to legally do the same. Seems to me it is all about getting rid of competition.

[Sensei]

15 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

Isn't it interesting (and pathetic) that in the "Land of the Free" we are constantly talking about banning things? I don't see where the spread of misinformation and propaganda is a legitimate concern in a country that allows its broadcasters on the airwaves to legally do the same. Seems to me it is all about getting rid of competition.

...it is not about information but how it is delivered.. i.e. one can make and hacker app, which will deliver (misleading) information..

22 hours ago, Phi for All said:

and to me it looks like the committee members have all received lobbying funds from the Big Tech firms

"To me" means to whom?

 

Edited March 25, 2023 by Sensei

[Phi for All]

10 hours ago, MigL said:

That being said, it is used by a majority of young people ( or those like Phi who wish they still were ),

It's not about wishing to be younger; it's about not wanting to turn into a cynical, narrow-minded old white guy. For me, it's a different way to connect to people I'd never meet otherwise. SFN has been the majority of my social media experience for almost 20 years, and I really value the relationships and what they've taught me. I appreciate the intellectual level here a great deal, and especially the civility. And what I found on TikTok was similar, with the majority of the experience being positive and instructional. I don't follow many scientists there, since I still don't like video for mainstream science, but I follow a really broad range of folks, mostly for perspectives I'm not exposed to much in daily life. 

To me, it's a voice for those who're supposed to have speech free from government suppression. Security is a concern for all the social media platforms, and needs to be applied across the board. So no, it doesn't make me feel younger, but it's great connecting and supporting others who are more interested in positivity than in peeing on the parades of others and making fun of them. 

28 minutes ago, Sensei said:

"to me" which means to ho?

I don't know what this means, but to clarify my comment, the way the committee members kept interrupting with weird comments made me think they weren't interested in getting real answers, which suggests they've been fed these talking points, a standard tactic of lobbying groups.

[MigL]

4 hours ago, Phi for All said:

SFN has been the majority of my social media experience for almost 20 years

I don't consider SFn a social media site, because I don't do social media.
( and you'd better not say I'm a cynical, narrow-minded old white guy 😀 )
More like an on-line learning site ,where we all learn, and we all teach.

I certainly consider quite a few members 'friends', although I've never met any of them ( even ones long gone ); I would immediately feel confortable with them if I did meet them because I feel I know how they think.

And they certainly don't post any of the inane crap like people do on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Truth Social ( 🤣 ) etc.

[Phi for All]

15 minutes ago, MigL said:

I don't consider SFn a social media site, because I don't do social media.
( and you'd better not say I'm a cynical, narrow-minded old white guy 😀 )
More like an on-line learning site ,where we all learn, and we all teach.

I certainly consider quite a few members 'friends', although I've never met any of them ( even ones long gone ); I would immediately feel confortable with them if I did meet them because I feel I know how they think.

You have a cynical outlook on what you think is social media, which is making you narrow-minded about how you define it. The dictionary definitions fit this site perfectly. We publish content and share ideas and personal messages over the internet.

24 minutes ago, MigL said:

And they certainly don't post any of the inane crap like people do on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Truth Social ( 🤣 ) etc.

Most platforms have to suffer a few fools, but I consider myself lucky to have found you lot. Not all social media is like the worst of them.

 

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

You have a cynical outlook on what you think is social media, which is making you narrow-minded about how you define it. The dictionary definitions fit this site perfectly. We publish content and share ideas and personal messages over the internet.

Most platforms have to suffer a few fools, but I consider myself lucky to have found you lot. Not all social media is like the worst of them.

 

Tiktok won't be banned. UKMOD has said it's an important outreach tool for them, so I imagine it is also for other international MODs. I'm happy to see more social media participation moving away from and diluting FB.

Edited March 25, 2023 by StringJunky

[swansont]

What is TikTok doing that Facebook and Meta aren’t, that makes it worthy of banning?

[iNow]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

What is TikTok doing that Facebook and Meta aren’t, that makes it worthy of banning?

Maybe more addictive, but your point is sound. Primary difference I see is where data is hosted and consequently how it gets protected / exploited. This takes nothing away from your crisp question, though. A lot of this is modern day Cold War drum beating. 

[MigL]

Indeed.
The difference is TikTok's link to China.
And rather than drum beating, China has actively used the internet for nefarious purposes, such as influencing, or trying to influence, democratic elections in the US.

[swansont]

11 hours ago, MigL said:

Indeed.
The difference is TikTok's link to China.
And rather than drum beating, China has actively used the internet for nefarious purposes, such as influencing, or trying to influence, democratic elections in the US.

But what have they done that Facebook and Meta haven’t? Russia has used Facebook to try to influence elections. Elon Musk is beholden to China for Tesla’s success, but there’s no talk of banning Twitter.

[MigL]

I have no love for Facebook or twitter.
And don't get me started on E Musk ...

[TheVat]

After NewsGuard did that report last fall, it seemed to me that TikTok misinformation levels (it's a popular search engine for young people, who seek a lot of news and info there) were a greater concern than the whole Yellow Peril bit.

Quote

The NewsGuard investigation found that for a sampling of searches on prominent news topics, almost 20 percent of the videos presented as search results contained misinformation. This means that for searches on topics ranging from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to school shootings and COVID vaccines, TikTok’s users are consistently fed false and misleading claims....

 https://www.newsguardtech.com/misinformation-monitor/september-2022

Quote

In September 2022, four U.S.-based NewsGuard analysts contrasted search results on TikTok and Google to find information about the 2020 presidential election, COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine war, the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, abortion, and school shootings, among other topics in the news. (As explained in the Methodology section below, these searches were done using new TikTok accounts to ensure search results were not influenced by prior user activity on the platform.) TikTok — whose library of user-generated videos can be easily searched by typing in keywords in its search bar — repeatedly delivered videos containing false claims in the first 20 results, often within the first five. Google, by comparison, provided higher-quality and less-polarizing results, with far less misinformation....

It's interesting that TikTok is banned in China, despite its ownership by a Chinese internet conglomerate.  

[iNow]

Another potentially interesting path to pursue here is how TikTok also seems to put our brains into a more hypnotic state.

I seem to recall studies coming out showing how (maybe?) delta waves and general flow states change in the brain depending on how the algorithm feeds videos to us, and we’re enormously prone to suggestion and influence when in those states… our normal defenses are far less effective.

I’ve read it and heard it in enough different places and from enough different sources now that I find it compelling. 

Meta and Twitter and Fox News et.al obviously try to achieve the same thing, but they’re like preschool flag football players compared to TikTok’s NFL brutes. 

Edited March 26, 2023 by iNow

[npts2020]

10 hours ago, TheVat said:

The NewsGuard investigation found that for a sampling of searches on prominent news topics, almost 20 percent of the videos presented as search results contained misinformation. This means that for searches on topics ranging from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to school shootings and COVID vaccines, TikTok’s users are consistently fed false and misleading claims....

I wonder what percentage of videos from somewhere like Newsmax or Fox contains misinformation?

[TheVat]

12 hours ago, npts2020 said:

I wonder what percentage of videos from somewhere like Newsmax or Fox contains misinformation?

Since that is NewsGuard's mission, I hope they have done similar investigations of Faux News et al.  Rather than banning all these miscreant companies, however, I think laws should be passed that impose severe penalties for fake news, laws that can't be loopholed by claiming "it's just entertainment!"  Lie about news events, pay a huge fine or even do jail time.  No white collar crime wrist-slaps.  

For Tucker Carlson, I can happily envision public flogging, perhaps combined with vultures arriving each day to chew on his liver.   

[Phi for All]

16 hours ago, iNow said:

I’ve read it and heard it in enough different places and from enough different sources now that I find it compelling. 

Sure, partly because hundreds of millions of dollars are backing this effort to control an uncontrollable form of media. The RESTRICT Act that's being proposed as a response supposedly protects us from foreign interference, but it will also let the .gov remove anything they don't like under the guise of national security. Only US companies like Facebook will prosper. It's basically like the laws we have that restrict imports on sugar to favor US growers. And the language seems so broad that it can be applied to almost anything they want to stifle.

I find it curious that government intervention has so much bipartisan support on an issue involving social media, but having the .gov tell us we have to wear masks to actually save lives meets with bipartisan howls of objection. I've watched much of that congressional hearing, and I've read the reactions from politicians and heard their lame interpretations in enough different sources now that I find their support for this bill suspicious and full of bad faith.

[TheVat]

That's why I like regulatory laws more than corporate bannings.  Laws, properly crafted, hold everyone to the same standard of truth and accuracy.  

It's always bugged me that reputable print-based newpapers (or ones that started on that ink platform) get sued for millions, and have to fire people and print retractions, if they publish misinformation (SEE the Jason Blair affair at the New York Times), while electronic media often escape that kind of consequence.  The NYT has had a tarnished reputation for almost two decades because of one writer.  That's the kind of deterrence that should be universal in the information world.

The Dominion lawsuit against Fox should not be a once-in-a-blue-moon event, it should be the norm.