Im Vorfeld der SCOTUS-Anhörung kommt eine Studie zu dem Schluss, dass TikTok wahrscheinlich ein Vehikel für chinesische Propaganda ist

Chinese government owned company towing party line? No way!

Chinese company pushing Chinese propaganda?!?

I’m shocked, SHOCKED! Well, not that shocked…

Stupid videos of teens trying to light their farts are Chinese propaganda?

So? Freedom of the press is freedom of the press.

The Chinese propaganda I’ve seen has been obvious so far. Cute videos extolling the Chinese rural life. Ads for Chinese companies selling industrial materials that are so poorly targeted that they become memes.

My Tiktok feed has like, zero Chinese propaganda. I barely ever even get videos from China, and when I do it’s someone cooking or making something.

This is just US social media companies using the government to take out a competitor.

In other news, all social media is propaganda driven by algorithms…

Imagine what it could do at a flip of a switch if China and Taiwan come closer to blows. The Chinese government has a direct propaganda channel to many millions of Americans, and could suddenly start showing young adults carefully crafted videos to get them out protesting or attacking their own government. 

Right now the hostile impact of TikTok is low, but the potential there is HUGE. Especially with AI and the Chinese compromising most of the cell networks in the US… they could tailor AI generated videos specific to individuals.

“Likely” lol

Take your pick, American or Chinese propaganda. It’s all bullshit.

“This study brought to you by American Propaganda”

Meta, X, Murdoch owned entities, etc. are a vehicle for right wing propaganda. Where’s the ban?

Then X (Twitter) is also propaganda for the right

Every social media is a vehicle of propaganda for its owner. Meta has had its share of scandals, Tiktok now, youtube’s alt right pipeline created much of the current Trump base, and Elon is actively right now using X to manipulate elections at home and get himself a government office where he can protect his subsidies while cutting others – and is actively pissing off the UK by attempting to manipulate their government as well by pushing literal lies and misinformation about migration and sex crimes. Propaganda is not ontologically bad, its just a way of convincing people of something, but propaganda based on lies and misinformation and deceit is obviously bad.

If we want to make it illegal for owners to manipulate the algorithm in favor of a specific political view you either

A) find its impossible as trends of popularity will always form that entrench specific views over others

B) moderating in any capacity carries some form of political bias (for example, banning all discussion of violence punishes rebel groups more than status quo dictators as resistance requires more violence than submission)

C) your algorithm gets extremely fucked up from lack of moderation and starts pushing violence and gore and -isms on its viewers

Handling the problem requires fighting it at its roots not at the endpoint

Step 1) shine a light on everything. Make all social media algorithms open source so any bias is visible so people can make informed decisions. People can have better media literacy on tiktok about china related videos if they know the both pro and anti videos exist, but they are seeing more pro china videos than on other sites. There is nothing inherently wrong with either POV as long as the algorithm is deceitfully lying about like counts or creating fake comments or pushing topdown misinformation (all things X is doing)

1.5) some algorithmic guardrails in place can be justified to ban subterfuge or rules for deletion of content but it will be thorny on both an effectiveness and civil rights basis

Step 2) stop letting single billionnaires own all media and thus all flow of information. Social media above a certain size requires rules on decisionmaking and allows changes in leadership when someone dictatorially begins remaking an app in their image. Social media ownership should be far more democratized

Step 3) privacy laws stating users own their own information and can have it removed, not allowed to be sold, not allowed to be used in training AI, etc. owners need to stop using people’s data for extraneous purposes without opt in approval and appropriate compensation if its used to make money

They don’t have anything on our Disney owned media services like CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, and CBS. We are the leaders in propaganda. Just need Mickey to put on a red hat.

Likely? lol

It’s freedom when we do it, propaganda when they do it. I am all for laws to regulate social medias including the american ones

Propaganda pointing out another country’s propaganda. Gotta manufacture that consent..

Vine would never…

Ah yes, so the answer is censorship. Because freedom?

Cambridge Analytica, Facebook was a big part of the fall of the US presidency.  But yeah TikTok is the problem and it will all be ok when they’re gone. 

It’s literally written in their AI regulations:
> Uphold the Core Socialist Values; content that is prohibited by laws and administrative regulations such as that inciting subversion of national sovereignty or the overturn of the socialist system, endangering national security and interests or harming the nation’s image, inciting separatism or undermining national unity and social stability

Source: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/generative-ai-interim/

Chinese propaganda!? All over social media!? Better use this as justification to shut down just the ones we don’t like then.

Do twitter/X next.

If it wasn’t Chinese, it would be Russian. Every high school student should have to take at least one course in critical thinking. The election of Trump has shown the complete failure of the US education system.

Keep em stupid and they’ll always vote conservative.