What does any of this have to do with TikTok? I've looked over my daughter's shoulder at what she's watching on TikTok. It's mostly silly kids doing silly dances to silly music. Not my cup of tea, but not exactly election-manipulation. What are they "doing to us" specifically?
> I've looked over my daughter's shoulder at what she's watching on TikTok. It's mostly silly kids doing silly dances to silly music. Not my cup of tea, but not exactly election-manipulation. What are they "doing to us" specifically?
Your last question is perfectly reasonable, and I'm interested in hearing more specifics to this point as well.
However, your primary stated basis for skepticism seems flawed. One child's usage pattern under parental surveillance is almost certainly not reflective of the platform as a whole.
Yea, I get that the content is algorithmically generated like all the other sites. What I've never heard a satisfying answer to is why TikTok is doing is worse than YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on. Something more specific than just "because China".
Rereading what I wrote, I think I emphasized poorly. America's youth in general have been on the right side of history in the US, IMHO. So I think I am wrong in the way I emphasized. I do think children are disproportionately harmed by the addictive properties of social media, but what I find primarily scary about TikTok is its potential for political malfeasance.
> What are they "doing to us" specifically?
You could have asked the same question about Wikileaks. Wikileaks was (credibly) publishing information in the interest of the public, yet Wikileaks played a direct and major part in compromising the presidency in 2016.
I think the main arguments against TikTok are:
1. They have ability to push specific agendas with plausible deniability
2. TikTok can suck in huge amounts of data and feed it to the Chinese intelligence apparatus
3. TikTok is "digital opium" under foreign supply and administration
4. China has banned our apps that both inspired and compete with TikTok in their own country
5. China has regulated TikTok in their own country because they believe it to be damaging to kids/society
> What does any of this have to do with TikTok?
The question being danced around is "should America head down the path of a great firewall or the greater path of internet balkanization?" Many here claim a firewall (banning a foreign app) is inherently authoritarian. I think a firewall is an amoral tool that can be used for good or evil. A gun can be used to defend freedom or take it. Guns are not authoritarian. A firewall is a similarly a tool of force.
> Something more specific than just "because China".
But that is the core problem. The problem is not so much TikTok, which in terms of actuality is likely not different than our own medias. The problem is China. I would be orders of magnitude more skeptical of anti TikTok efforts if TikTok were owned and operated by/in the EU.
If you start to bring up Cambridge Analytica, I think that would be pretty devastating to my stance. Maga-twitter is pretty devastating to my position too. Too few men having too much unchecked power is it's own problem which is arguably much more damaging than than anything China is doing, certainly in the long run.
