
The TikTok War - migueldemoura
https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/
======
kpennell
I'm not sure how I got sucked into Tiktok but I was quickly hooked. There's
something so refreshingly playful, authentic, and raw about so much Tiktok
content compared to Instagram. Instagram (explore/discovery) is generally
pretty people with pretty things in pretty places. That was fun for a while
but it's just not that interesting after a while. I don't need to see more
pretty pictures of women doing yoga. I don't need to see more pretty mountain
bikes I can't afford. I don't need to see anymore drone shots of Milford Sound
in New Zealand.

Tiktok, on the other hand, is playful, diverse, and interesting (at least my
feed is). Once you start liking content, the feed completely changes from
teenage lip sync videos or other teenager-oriented content into such a nice
variety of content. I legitimately laugh my ass off or smile happily at so
much of it. Other content teaches me about food, gardening, dancing, DIY,
media theory, hiking alone, gender bending, etc. etc. The list goes on. Some
of the videos delight me and others inform me.

Instagram, by contrast, just feels so bland now.

~~~
analyte123
Something about Tiktok, whether the algorithm or the sheer volume of content,
seems to discourage the sort of look-at-me envy-bait narcissistic posturing
that is so common on Instagram. To be popular on Tiktok you actually have to
_do_ stuff (even it's fairly banal like dancing or telling stories), not just
_be_ (or pretend to be) someone.

I found it funny that the author of this post is trying to defend liberal
values like the free flow of information on the internet by...making Apple and
Google remove Tiktok from people's phones. He's correct that the primary
political risk of Tiktok is the recommendation algorithm being manipulated.
However, American tech companies manipulate their recommendation algorithms
for political reasons (in the loose sense of the word political) _all the
time_ and I'm sure not everyone in the world likes that either.

This would have been a good chance to really defend free flow of information
on the internet, open and swappable recommendation algorithms, personal data
ownership, and so on, but the conclusion is basically "it's bad because a
China-affiliated company does it". Generally, everything that Tiktok does that
is wrong is also wrong when Facebook does it. The reality is that Tiktok is
(for now) a superior product in many ways to anything from American tech
companies. Why is this?

~~~
sharadov
My naive question is how is Tiktok bad and all other American social media
platforms - FB/Insta/Snap good?

~~~
orangse
My theoretical answer would be that we can regulate American companies more
effectively and have them be held accountable, like when Zuckerberg had to go
before Congress. I doubt you'd be able to get the CEO of a large Chinese
company to do that.

In reality we don't regulate them nearly as much as we can, so the end result
is that FB and Tiktok both invade your privacy.

~~~
esperent
As a non-American looking on, it seems to me like the US government has failed
spectacularly at any kind of regulation, and to the contrary is often actively
trying to undermine privacy laws. Zuckerberg in front of congress achieved
exactly zero, except provide footage for loads of memes of Zuckerberg as a
lizard.

I prefer the idea of a US based social media company to a Chinese one. But
only slightly. I would much rather the company be based somewhere with genuine
intent to create consumer safety and privacy focused laws.

------
netcan
This tiktok "war" is, ultimately, changing the way people politicians think
about media tech.

With Twitter or Facebook, it's a lot easier to dismiss the magnitude of their
influence. After all, they're not in business to influence politics. They just
want to make tech & sell ads and make money. They don't care what becomes
news, who wins elections etc. Benign commercial interests, that's all

With tiktok and the chinese government's explicit approach of combining public
& commercial interest... That argument falls apart. That and the fact that it
is a foreign entity potentially affecting american politics.

Ultimately, the argument will swing back to FB & such... hopefully.

~~~
moron4hire
> After all, they're not in business to influence politics.

Dude, I personally know people who work in Facebook's own lobbying department.
I would be very surprised if Twitter didn't have the same thing.

~~~
xapata
There's a difference between Facebook lobbying and Facebook using its products
to disseminate propaganda.

~~~
agustif
Yeah right, Cambridge Analytica wasn't a thing...

~~~
xapata
That's considered a scandal, and was on behalf of political groups, not the
government itself.

~~~
agustif
You say political groups when there's only democrats/republicans dicothomy on
the US.

Republican interests channelled through russian oligarch friends made TRUMP
possible.

Let's see what happens on the coming elections...

------
jjuel
I recently deleted TikTok from my phone. I didn't have it for too long, and
until the recent press I had no idea it was a Chinese app. Honestly, I
understand companies will mine my data, but I have an issue with those
companies being forced to submit my data to the Chinese government on a whim.
And it was really all the same thing. People doing the same skits or dances.
Most of which were just chicks doing it in bikinis to get more views and
likes.

~~~
chosenbreed37
Are you actually concerned that the Chinese government might get access to
your data or is it a matter of principle? What do you think they want to do
with it? If they really wanted it could they not acquire it by other means? I
ask as I'm genuinely curious. I'm considering install it on my phone to try it
out and see how it compares to youtube. I'm not dissatisfied with my youtube
feed. Just curious as to how much better TikTok would be based on the
descriptions on the article and on this thread.

~~~
scruple
> Are you actually concerned that the Chinese government might get access to
> your data or is it a matter of principle?

Both.

> What do you think they want to do with it?

Absolutely no idea. Much like I had no idea what Facebook was doing, or
planned to do, with my data back in the 00s. I think we've been down this road
enough in the modern era to be distrustful of any entity, especially a
government, especially my own government, and especially the Chinese
government.

> If they really wanted it could they not acquire it by other means?

If they really wanted to target me as an individual, I am sure they could dig
up $THINGS. That doesn't mean I want to do their job for them.

Your line of questioning here, as I've read it, boils down to: "What are you
afraid of if you have nothing to hide?"

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Possibly, but it could be just be pragmatic - if I lived in the PRC, I would
be very, very nervous about sharing some kind of unfiltered feed of my data
with state entities. Living outside of the PRC, it's harder to imagine what
kind of practical use they'd put that same data to - though that might get
more exciting if I traveled to China at some point in the future...

~~~
scruple
Maybe you're right, but I don't think so. For me, personally, it is kind of
personal...

I have visited China multiple times. My wife is Chinese-American. My children
are half-Chinese and will, hopefully, be fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin,
Vietnamese (MIL is Vietnam-born Chinese and a Vietnam War refugee), and
English. A lot of our extended family still lives in China, in Hong Kong and
the mainland (and even Taiwan). I am critical of China, online and off, and I
have been for many, many years.

This isn't even that new to us, specifically. We decided in 2014 that we were
not willing to go into the mainland anymore. Most of my wifes paternal family
left Hong Kong after the hand-off in 1997 -- the writing was on the wall for
anyone willing to pay attention. Given everything that has happened in Hong
Kong in the last year or so, I don't think we'll ever visit family there
again, either.

More on topic, though... It's bad enough that I have this nagging feeling in
the back of my head about what sorts of bullshit the NSA, etc..., (and how
they probably share this data freely, if asked, with the FVEY, allied
intelligence agencies, etc...) are getting up to with my data, but I've
learned how to deal with that without experiencing too much of a chilling
effect. I don't have the mental capacity to fight this on yet another front,
especially when my own understanding of Chinese state politics is so
inadequate. Thankfully, I can easily opt out by simply not installing and/or
using TikTok, or any of the other Chinese state-sponsored spyware, on any of
our devices.

> Living outside of the PRC, it's harder to imagine what kind of practical use
> they'd put that same data to

Their reach doesn't end at their borders. The same can be said of every modern
government / state on the planet today.

If you want a specific example, the Blitzchung controversy is worth
understanding. [0] There's a list of censorship-related issues on Wikipedia,
too. [1]

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_censorship_of_Chinese...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_censorship_of_Chinese_issues)

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Oh yes, I don't think that sounds overly paranoid to me under those
circumstances at all. I am sure I am on some lists here in the US for having
taken both Mandarin and Arabic as an undergrad (I could only be more evil if
I'd added Russian).

------
fossuser
There’s a lot of false equivalence in these comments along with a focus on the
app itself.

My worry is about CCP influence and their ability to both spread
misinformation and at the same time suppress stories the party doesn’t like.

Easy current examples are the democracy protests in Hong Kong, and the
sterilization going on in the Uyghur camps in China.

On Twitter you can talk about both things, on TikTok they will be shut down by
the CCP and it’s set up in such a way that users wouldn’t even notice.

On Twitter you can also be critical of the USG.

That’s the risk to me, that the CCP turns down the knobs on speech they
dislike and the public is too focused on dance videos to notice.

It’s an even greater risk to people like Joshua Wong, not only would his
speech be suppressed on TikTok, but the company would also hand over whatever
personal or location data they had on him to the government itself.
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Wong](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Wong))

The CCP should not be stewards of the services we use.

~~~
YarickR2
Twitter the company shouldn't be a steward of the Twitter the tool, too - do
you agree with that ?

------
azatris
I absolutely love using TikTok, but would give it up in a heartbeat for a
Western replacement.

It has absolutely brought more positivity into my life. I am specifically
feeding the algorithm with this intent and I get what I asked for. It is a
psychological tool.

~~~
baron_harkonnen
> give it up in a heartbeat for a Western replacement.

It's important to recognized that it's not a coincidence that TikTok exists
and is run by a Chinese company.

In the West that replacement would have been immediately purchased by FB or
Twitter and then summarily destroyed. This is literally what happened to the
closest Western equivalent: Vine.

The Chinese government has many faults, but unlike the US government, the
Chinese government still enforces the idea that Chinese companies should
operate in the interest of the nation.

Facebook did try to buy Musical.ly, the company that became TikTok, and would
have likely destroyed it just like Twitter did Vine.

If the US government was remotely functional it would put a little effort into
challenging the ability of near monopolies to simply destroy any competitor
through acquisition. I agree that it's not ideal that the Chinese government
is tightly connected with TikTok/ByteDance, but the reason there is no Western
TikTok is because our governments (particularly the US) are so deeply aligned
with the interests of larger corporations that a viable competitor to these
cannot exist.

~~~
creddit
Why assume FB would kill an acquisition? They didn’t kill WA, IG or Beluga.
They made them into massive billion+ DAU services.

~~~
brownbat
It may be harder to monetize short video content than short text or longer
videos (maybe that drives YouTube revenue nudges for longer content?).

But people like short videos, so there's a tension there. If you're in ads,
maybe just buy a few short video companies, get their patents to sue their
competitors, and shut them down, so no one gets access to the thing that they
like but is less lucrative for you.

But maybe you're right and they would have followed an IG model just fine.

------
eclipsetheworld
Why is TikTok allowed to gain market share in Western countries? China banned
Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc. while Chinese companies such as Baidu, Sina
Weibo, WeChat were able to capture the entire Chinese market share.

It seems that companies not adhering to censorship cannot expand into China,
however, Chinese companies adhering to censorship (e.g. TikTok) are able to
expand into Western countries. Isn't this anti-competitive?

~~~
rvz
Good question. If you want to get into the Chinese market, you must comply
with its laws and not get in the way of angering the CCP. China is one of
Apple's largest markets due to its access to over 1B+ people and it now has
its hands tied and anything the CCP wants removed, Apple will do it. [0][1][2]

Like you just said, TikTok already compiles with this security law and
censors/bans whatever the CCP requests. By moving outside of China it can
either lose access to the Chinese market and get banned by China or still
comply with its laws and get banned by the US.

The thing is, TikTok has offices out side of China due to the Musical.ly
acquisition (Located in the US) so can still operate there whilst Bytedance
being headquartered in Beijing.

A takedown request can be made to the App Store owner. Apple and Google.

[0] [https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/04/new-york-times-apps-
removed-i...](https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/04/new-york-times-apps-removed-in-
china/)

[1] [https://9to5mac.com/2017/11/21/skype-china-app-
store/](https://9to5mac.com/2017/11/21/skype-china-app-store/)

[2] [https://9to5mac.com/2019/10/10/protest-
app/](https://9to5mac.com/2019/10/10/protest-app/)

~~~
throw57654
TikTok is banned in China.

The company has an isolated version called Douyin that is only available in
China.

------
chvid
As an European I am happy that someone is finally breaking the American
monopoly on social media.

It just feels wrong only being surveilled by the NSA.

~~~
nix23
Install yandex tiktok and facebook and you have the holy trinity ;)

~~~
082349872349872
Eurasia, Eastasia, and Oceania ;)

(by the end of the year Airstrip One will have always been part of Oceania)

------
amadeuspagel
Interesting that only India's decision to ban TikTok made that possible in the
US. Shows how polarized the US is. If one side suggested banning TikTok, the
other side would immidiately defend it, but India banning it can bring it into
the conversation in a way that doesn't force everyone to adopt a view on it
reflexively.

------
Pandabob
I guess the sentiment that TikTok should be sold is gaining ground. It's
pretty clear from a regulatory perspective that Facebook won't be allowed to
buy it and probably Google neither.

The app also seems to be kind of a wonky fit to Amazons, Microsofts or Apples
portfolio (although Amazon does own twitch, so who knows).

I can't make a solid argument for it, but I wouldn't rule out either Netflix
or Disney making a bid for TikTok. Both companies are great with video, and I
think the current CEO of TikTok is the former COO of Disney. IDK.

~~~
esperent
If it does get sold, hopefully it's not to an US company. The web is already
far too dominated by US socal media companies.

------
russli1993
Tiktok's parent company, bytedance is incorporated in Cayman islands. It has a
Chinese subsidiary operating Douyin in China , and a US subsidiary operating
Tiktok in the US. The Chinese national intelligence law is applied to the
Chinese subsidiary but not the parent because the parent is not incorporated
in China. Hence the US subsidiary is not subjected to Chinese law. If Chinese
government demands US data and Bytedance's Chinese subsidiary refuses, the
government can shut down the Chinese subsidiary, but the Cayman island parent
will still operate. Hence Chinese government has no power over the US
subsidiary. Author says that Chinese values and American values are absolutely
opposing and because of that Tiktok's algorithms and product design could
undermine American values either consciously or unconsciously. Right now
Bytedance's US subsidiary is managed by Americans, hires US based engineers,
and the content moderation team is staffed with Americans. The goal should be
that Tiktok and Douyin will be separate, design, operated and moderated
separately. This could be strengthened by having American management at
Bytedance parent, and have Bytedance go public and have American board
directors. I hope that whatever international fears about Tiktok, the
regulatory body/government should make list of rules for Tiktok. Tiktok should
be given a chance to defend its positions, and ability to comply with the
rules. We should not just straight out ban tiktok, like "bam, after today, its
removed from app stores everywhere". that is not in the spirit of rule of law.

~~~
babaganoosh89
"If Chinese government demands US data and Bytedance's Chinese subsidiary
refuses, the government can shut down the Chinese subsidiary, but the Cayman
island parent will still operate. Hence Chinese government has no power over
the US subsidiary."

The issue is the Chinese government can compel it's citizens to do whatever
they want. Having non-Chinese in the management of Bytedance could help but I
can't imagine they could have a truly independent board if Bytedance is
majority owned by Chinese citizens.

------
rhacker
As the instagram teenagers that made it popular are now 22 - 25, it's their
turn to see a new generation overtake what is cool. Don't worry you guys will
see them in 10 years sad-facing when BlopChop is popular with the now 5 year
olds...

------
igammarays
It's interesting that we are beginning to realize the paradoxical nature of
"free speech". It's unfortunate that _free speech cannibalizes itself_. Since
there are other powers with significant influence who can enforce their speech
protectionism, it necessitates a response of the same kind, or risks
collapsing free speech entirely in favor of an opponent. It's a power
struggle, plain and simple.

------
caddie
i personally enjoy seeing young teenagers recording dancing videos on the
beach while prior to tiktok they used to just seat down, heads down on their
phone, absent, non-existent.

~~~
kpennell
Agreed. Yeah, you can make fun of them but they are actually doing something
now.

------
kbenson
> I can’t emphasize this point enough: one of the gravest errors made by far
> too many people in the U.S. is taking an exceptionally self-centered view of
> U.S.-China relations, where everything is about what the U.S. says and does,
> while China is treated like an NPC. Indeed, it is quite insulting to China,
> a great nation with a history far longer than that of the United States.

Culturally, China has a very long history. Governmentally, which is what's
being talked about here because we're discussing trade, they're less than a
century old. We should expect the ruling government of China to behave as they
have in the past, not as previous governments have.

------
codekansas
An under-appreciated aspect of this "war" is how bad US companies have been at
building ML-first products. ByteDance in particular is just fantastic at it -
their products feels designed with the algorithm in mind, as if everyone
involved in the development has some understanding of machine learning. This
exposes some weaknesses with existing social media platforms that were built
before the deep learning boom, as he says in the article. It is probably
worthwhile for American innovators to think about what otherwise-impenetrable
areas this could expose.

------
haecceity
> What is increasingly clear, though, is that China’s insistence that the West
> ignore the country’s “internal affairs” is a sentiment that is not
> reciprocated; the list of Western companies bullied by China for Western
> content is long and growing, the country is flooding Twitter and Facebook
> with coronavirus propaganda, and is leveraging WeChat to spread
> misinformation and to surveil the Chinese diaspora.

None of those are "internal affairs" to any Western country. Those are
international companies that have an interest in not pissing off their cash
cow. If they poured money into the Cascadia independence movement then that
would America and Canada's internal affairs. But the only party doing that is
the State Department and NED.

There's a lot of inaccuracies in this article. He seems to think knowledge in
tech translates to knowledge in other things. Pity.

------
duxup
The scale of information available to an app is potentially huge.

Thus they're automatically involved in some sort of information warfare.

I guess there's two options, either by default the the ecosystem doesn't allow
for them to have that information ... or they're in play for these types of
things.

I don't think there's any other options...

------
nindalf
> the service censored #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd

I feel like this claim isn't well substantiated. TikTok claims it was a bug
where 2 billion+ views were shown as 0 views. That specific number - the limit
on a 32 bit signed integer, makes me think that it was a bug.

------
blackrock
\--yawn--

Another dude advocating for the suppression of a foreign government. Been
there, done that, seen it all, happened before, will happen again.

To think that a little app that promotes a bunch of videos of kids acting
silly, is a national security threat, is ridiculous.

All you need for counter-evidence, is to look at Twitter, Facebook, and all
the American news media sites and outlets. They routinely and actively
brainwash the population, with the same repeated bombardment of information,
even though they claim to be independent reporting agencies.

In fact, all the American news agencies, are increasing the aggressiveness of
the rhetoric, and appear to be drumming up the mood for war against China.

You, as Americans, should be very disturbed by this. Because, if the United
States engages into a war with China, then it is you, and your children, that
will face the brunt of the violence of war. The American elites, and their
children, will be safely kept away from any of that violence; and they will be
benefiting financially from it all, while you and your children die in the
Pacific Ocean.

If you want to ban TikTok, then just ban them. Just say, that you don't want
any Chinese media presence on American airwaves. Simple as that. Begin your
own censoring of the internet.

Don't bother with making some far-fetched reasoning that some fictitious enemy
is out to get you. This is, in fact, what scares Americans the most - the
creation of some fictitious bogeyman.

------
pastaking
Maybe a correction: The article mentions that Amazon asked its employees to
delete the app. But Amazon later retracted that decision.

~~~
mikikikik
this is already mentioned in the article.

------
here4U
I wonder how true Thompson's assertion about a war of ideology between China
and western values is.

Are there any examples of TikTok influencing thinking in a pro-Chinese way via
algorithm tuning or direct curation?

------
greyhair
I am just going to repeat the best link here:

[https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-
in](https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in)

Wow.

------
raphlinus
Relevant to the topic of political propaganda and in particular conspiracy
theories, the leftist blogger Digby wrote a good post [1] critical of TikTok
even though she was sympathetic to the punking of the Trump rally in Tulsa. In
particular, she cites reporting from the Daily Beast that Pizzagate conspiracy
theories are circulating widely on the platform. I'm not endorsing this
reporting as fact, but do think it is good food for thought. In any case, the
platform seems to be very poorly optimized for critical thinking, which is
fine for "laughter and dancing" but less fine in other domains.

[1]: [https://digbysblog.net/2020/06/tiktok-isnt-the-answer-
folks/](https://digbysblog.net/2020/06/tiktok-isnt-the-answer-folks/)

------
spinach
It is hardly just Tiktok policing content with an agenda. Twitter, Youtube,
Reddit are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical
ideas.

Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the
idea that men can _literally_ become women (they say it's to stop hate, but
they leave up violent porn subs and other subs that hate women). Even
subreddits like PCOS - a very serious condition that only females have - ran
into trouble because they aren't inclusive enough with their language. Someone
got suspended on twitter for saying only females get cervical cancer (this is
apparently hate speech), Meghan Murphy got banned from Twitter for using the
pronoun 'he' about Yaniv about a profile of his when he was presenting as a
man. People get their videos taken down on youtube for "misgendering" people,
or demonetized for not having the correct opinion.

American companies are absolutely policing content to their own political
agenda.

~~~
Spivak
Reddit banned a bunch of hate subreddits. Full stop. I don't care what you
think about trans men and women but this is not a case of people being overly
sensitive. "Gender Critical" is the spiritual equivalent of "Race Realists"
and their subreddits were nothing other than a safe space for them to express
their overt hate. This was not a place "simply" for people with an opinion.

You don't understand hate speech. Misgendering a trans person isn't hate
unless you do it with the intent to hurt them. Saying that only women get
cervical cancer or that that shit that JK spouts about menstruation is
literally no issue except for the fact that it's said to purposely be mean and
exclusive.

Like FFS, I'm glad we're finally at the point where this bullshit "I'm
speaking in coded language and therefore technically not being a hateful pos
despite everyone and especially my followers know exactly what I mean" is
being called out for what it is an not tolerated anymore.

~~~
jl6
For what it’s worth, I came across Gender Critical a couple of months back, as
a confused neutral trying to understand what everybody was talking about. My
impression was of a community uniting around a common anger at new trans-
rights encroaching on hard-fought womens’ rights. I didn’t see much hate, and
indeed many posters took pains to call out their support for trans-rights _in
principle_. I think the anger was real though, and maybe was mistaken for hate
by whoever decided to ban them.

~~~
Spivak
Yep, that's pretty much what their community says on the tin. If that was what
they actually were in practice I don't think it would have even been an issue.
Sure, the trans community would have probably still disliked them, but like
it's not like trans people are some big cultural powerhouse. There have been
old-school well-respected academics that held similar opinions since the dawn
of second-wave feminism. And don't get me wrong, there has always been plenty
of infighting among feminists along this line -- many impassioned conferences,
books, articles written about it. And it's from these people that GC takes
their heritage and has used it for years to "legitimize" their hate. It's what
allowed them to survive online as long as they did because they knew how to
fly just under the radar.

Then, like a lot of subreddits, GC got bigger and the new influx of people
weren't uhh... so subtle and more and more of the content became insulting,
shaming, and "cringe" directed at specific trans people.

------
ausjke
actually not just tiktok, others like wechat, taobao, all the eCommerce,
messengers, USA is behind China by a few years these days.

in the early days they cloned and studied, now they actually took over and
Facebook etc barely can even catch up

------
babesh
There seems to be a concerted effort from both China and the US to create
sides. It feels like a new Cold War is looming.

Stratechery is playing on one side. The reality is that US companies are quite
willing to censor and manipulate information as well.

Facebook and YouTube censored coronavirus information for the US government.
Facebook is fine with right wing manipulation. These propaganda efforts by US
companies affect people from other countries.

Both sides are just trying to amass and maintain power. The CCP needs to
control information to maintain power. The US is a consortium of entities
amassing money and power and likewise tries to destroy institutions preventing
that. I bet if you look inside the CCP, you would likewise see multiple groups
vying for power.

If you follow Stratechery’s logic, then non US countries should likewise ban
Facebook and YouTube.

The more ethical solution would be worldwide standards on censorship.

------
k__
I don't see the problem.

TikTok will be banned. SV will do a US based replacement. All will be good.

------
ngcc_hk
Tik Tok success as a technology is well argued by the author. That should be
copied and cloned and compete as MANY not as one.

That is this onesness that I try to argue. This is this oneness that get China
and the strategy missing this part of China the problem.

Obviously I would be baised in the sense that the author just gave up my whole
place and my 2m+ liberty loving followers. U people, HK people, TW people ...
is just part of China, we can just dump them (or you can just dump us) because
we belong to a "ONE". The whole idea of human rights are about individual not
about the rights of nation over you or us in Hong Kong. If you let the oneness
grow and ignore that one is evil, you die with us because the evil will
expand. HK is the front of the ideological fight. Not sure why the author not
noted that the play against HK is a play against the promise and contract by
the less powerful China to the future. Read Deng speech in UN, you can see
there is a promising China. But look at today you know nothing in the one is
preventing it. The West look otherwise by letting China grow so powerful it is
near a stat that cannot fail. The west has to feed the hand that is going to
kill them. Just cut the tie is not enough. A more aggressive way of engaging
is needed. Otherwise the world is just another South China Seas.

China has been asserted itself in Internet (speech by Xin please read), UN,
WTO, WHO, ... etc. They have number on their side in the past. Now they have
money, they have the language (so many good English speakers in the elite and
their children), ... There could be millions inside the west and trillion in
the bank. It is like Soviet Union evolve and attack USA soil from underneath.

But the analysis is so well that seems ok? That we have to deal with China as
one. It is partially yes and partially No. The key problem is what we call
one-ness of Chinese thinking. You using that you lost already. What America is
great and Europe in a sense has built-in immunity is that there are individual
(or even the extreme right has the club concept). You do not analysis a world
as a world. A world is nothing but its individual and its links among
individual. Now the problem when you think the whole China is a whole you have
to fight against then you got yourselves a long term problem.

I said long term is from time to time China would group itself together into
one big nasty empire. The best is when it is weak (like in Sung Dynasty) when
the culture of unity does not break human backs. But once they are big and as
oneness is built into the pyshce they just go ahead to transform all
barbarians and uncivilised into one of them. There is no stop. Nothing
internal to the Chinese philosophy has many in mind. Everyone has to be saved
is what they think, and it is what ultimately you got.

What you need to do is to ensure the individual spirit and liberty mind to
survive inside. So the original promise that a great China contribute as part
of many, not force its way as one into the world. Just cut into two would not
help. HK, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, the whole Asian countries are those many.

Not one less! Not just one!

:-) ok back to my debugging of the solitaire of C. gdb tracing of pointer
structure is hard, isn't it. From 6502 (by guessing), 370 (XA to ESA extension
and control block) to now; still you always deal with dump. Sigh. Back to my
cave even though the world is collapsing, that you can hack as an individual
and do what you enjoy is more important. And that is why this all about. We
should have more or one TikTok.

------
norswap
Nitpick, but this man doesn't really seem to understand what "Marxism" means.

------
Schnitz
"the Chinese Communist Party very much believes that Marxism is the means by
which that must be accomplished"

This is BS, the economic system in China is in no way Marxist, nor is it going
in that direction. It's worse, lol. This sounds like someone is simply
rehashing propaganda he heard somewhere that was intended to either smear Marx
or China or both.

~~~
quicklime
It's unfortunate that you were downvoted for this; you're absolutely correct.
No one in China gives a fuck about Marxism, and the CCP certainly isn't trying
to wage some ideological war to establish some sort of Marxist utopia. To
think so is to completely misunderstand the CCP's motivation, which is a
dangerous thing when the tensions are escalating and war could be the result.

~~~
chillacy
This link was included in the article: [https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-
the-soul-ideology-in](https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-
in)

While China has certainly strayed pretty far from its state-controlled economy
in recent years, it also seems pretty clear that Xi is more ideologically
"hardcore" than his predecessors.

------
Asad445
Tiktok is changing the mindset of our generation

~~~
collegeburner
Current young person here (entering college this fall). I can't think of a
single way it's changed "the mindset of our generation", and it seems it's
used very heavily by a specific type of person but not by others (as opposed
to other social media which is more widely used). How is it changing anything?

------
actuator
Ben is absolutely right and something needs to be done to fight for the values
of liberalism, democracy etc we hold dear but I don't see how this will
happen. The world seems more divided than ever. Just 2-3 countries
unilaterally acting on these issues isn't going to make a difference, how I
wish there were strong leaders in some of the nations who knew how to work
well for those ideals in the long term together with others.

Also, this is not just about Tiktok as Ben mentioned. When American
corporations like NBA start censoring things on their own soil, it is beyond
reprehensible.

~~~
indymike
Everyone forgets that Tiktok bought Musical.ly which was an American product
to get the market traction they have. The issue that seems more real than
political speech is that US social media / internet companies are denied
access to the Chinese market while we allow Chinese owned companies complete
access to the US market. Seems like that is unjust.

~~~
glaive123
Musical.ly is not an American product. Just because it was incorporated in US
does not mean the team and co-founders are from US.

------
euix
In the last century the prevailing line the U.S. was that the U.S. would
change China through economic engagement, I think what is really going to
happen is China is going to change the U.S.

Mainly in the sense that in order to adapt to the competitive threat from
China the U.S. has to become more state capitalism and industrial policy
guided.

Using strong government to guide industrial policy, fend off or cripple
foreign competitors, enact infrastructure. These are the standard tools in
China.

As for China, I wonder in the long term if this is not pioneering a completely
new mode of the human species. What is the logical end of total surveillance
and censorship? Eventually unifying every person into the mind of the state
until individualism dissolves and we are all subsumed into a common entity.

Maybe I am speculating too far but if you could have everyone carry an implant
from birth wired to a single network then you could achieve the common science
fiction trope of an unified collective conscious. Maybe even the leading Party
theoreticians haven't even sought about it this far yet.

------
mchusma
Good article, but I do feel disagree strongly with this statement:

"while I mourn the end of a free and vibrant Hong Kong that I have had the
pleasure of visiting on multiple occasions, I am unmoved by complaints about
China’s promised adherence to the Basic Law; that was an agreement imposed on
China by a colonial power, and Hong Kong is unquestionably a Chinese city,
ultimately subject to Chinese law."

Hong Kong is a unique place, with a unique history, unique government, and
more. Yes a Chinese imperial government leased land to British under duress.
That imperial government no longer exists, period. The British gave it to a
different government under clear terms that were violated. So where does that
put Hong Kong? I think you can argue a bunch of different positions, but not
that it is unquestionably under authoritarian Chinese communist rule.

This is disregarding the liberal traditional opinion in the West (and Locke,
etc ) that people have universal rights period, and that governments that
violate those rights are not valid governments.

I think there are stronger philosophical positions to take, including that
Hong Kong should be Independent by right, and that China violated it's
agreements with the citizens of Hong Kong.

~~~
vincvinc
Hey, I see you've struck a nerve with some people - even talking about the
idea of an independent Hong Kong will send your comment to the absolute
bottom.

Have my upvote.

------
crazygringo
This piece is ridiculous. Mainly:

> _What matters more in an ideological war, though, is influence, and that is
> why I do believe that ByteDance’s continued ownership of TikTok is
> unacceptable._

What's implied but unsaid here is that somehow the CCP is going to fill TikTok
with political propaganda that... a bunch of teens are going to somehow become
influenced by? Sorry, but that's just completely far-fetched. _Facebook_ is
something to be concerned about, with people sharing political stories, memes,
etc. But _TikTok_? A bunch of funny videos? There's nothing that could be
further from ideology.

> _Perhaps the most powerful argument against taking any sort of action is
> that we aren’t China, and isn’t blocking TikTok something that China would
> do?_

Yes, this is precisely why we _don 't_ need to do this. We're better than
China. Things like freedom of speech, democracy, and the free market set a
moral example to the world. Once we start censoring things, we lose that moral
leadership. (And sure you can argue all you want about our declining moral
leadership and the state of our democracy, but let's not make it _even worse_
, shall we?)

> _If China is on the offensive against liberalism not only within its borders
> but within ours, it is in liberalism’s interest to cut off a vector that has
> taken root precisely because it is so brilliantly engineered to give humans
> exactly what they want._

Isn't _every_ product trying to be brilliantly engineered to give customers
exactly what they want? All this boils down to is, it's a good app, so let's
kill it. Again, totally opposite the American values of competition, the free
market, and consumers.

Sorry, but there is absolutely zero logic in this analysis.

~~~
narrator
TikTok users flooded the Trump rally with fake ticket requests.

[https://nypost.com/2020/06/21/tiktok-campaigns-ensure-
hundre...](https://nypost.com/2020/06/21/tiktok-campaigns-ensure-hundreds-of-
unused-seats-at-trump-tulsa-rally/)

The plausible deniability is easy. No one will ever find out if it was
specially promoted. They could just throw up their hands and say that it all
happened all by itself. The algorithm is a mystery and a trade secret!

U.S Teens are making "I Love China" videos on TikTok.

[https://www.recruitmentnewsuk.co.uk/2020/05/28/why-us-
teens-...](https://www.recruitmentnewsuk.co.uk/2020/05/28/why-us-teens-on-
tiktok-are-making-i-love-china-videos/)

The algorithm could interfere to remove any pro-Trump or anti-China TikToks
and noone would be the wiser. There is zero transparency.

The Chinese government can lend these institutions billions forever and
undercut rivals and overpay programmers if it buys them political influence.

Speaking of a free market in ideas. 90% of the U.S media is owned by 5
companies. I think a good idea would be to reverse the Telecommunications Act
of 1996 which allowed for massive TV and Radio consolidation. Local radio was
actually good in the late 80s and early 90s and new music styles were
discovered and promoted by disk jockeys on local stations. After 96, the
conglomerates bought up all the radio stations and IMHO, popular music more or
less froze in place with just the names of the bands rotating.

~~~
crazygringo
And all sorts of nonsense happens on Facebook. But TikTok is almost infinitely
_less_ political than Facebook.

The Trump rally thing was a prank that was widely publicized on the internet.
And the "I love China" videos seem to be a joke too.

You're going to find a little bit of everything on every platform. The idea
that TikTok is somehow pushing Chinese ideology remains completely unfounded
and baseless. It's pure imagination and conjecture.

If it ever _does_ , it will be obvious and action can be taken then. But until
it does, banning something like TikTok is simply blatantly anticompetitive and
stooping to China's types of censorship. Again, _we 're better than that_.

------
flattone
Tiktok could offer to pay your mortgage im still confused and disgusted people
use it

------
ngcc_hk
Save yourselves, please!

    
    
       A message from Hong Kong.

