A couple of days ago TikTok's users were greeted with an unusual welcome screen when they logged in: a message from the company warning that Congress was trying to shut them down and asking its fans to call their senators and representatives about it. I remain ambivalent about TikTok, but the reaction of the right to TikTok's lobbying is flatly deranged:
The way in which the Chinese-owned social-media app TikTok went about trying to convince lawmakers to leave it alone was unique. It sicced its youthful users on Washington in a campaign of intimidation and emotional blackmail, confirming that the air of menace the app has cultivated for itself is no accident.
....The campaign was a disaster. It presented tangible evidence to lawmakers not only that TikTok’s capacity to track the data and locations of their users was quite robust but also that those users were in the throes of a deep dependency.
....If TikTok survives as a CCP-controlled entity despite the clear evidence of not just the psychological damage it is doing to the American public but the peril it presents to American national security, we will know why. It will be the culmination of this intimidation campaign, in which a well-funded effort to hold America’s children hostage succeeded.
What in the actual fuck is this about? The NRA, just to take one example, is famous for "siccing" its members on Congress by the millions. AIPAC does it, AARP does it, and the NEA does it. It's all just ordinary political mobilization, not "intimidation and emotional blackmail."
Nor does any of this indicate that TikTok knows anything unusual about its users. Its message went out to everyone, young and old, and was personalized only to the extent of guessing what congressional district they were in.
Nor, finally, does TikTok "hold America's children hostage," at least no more than Taylor Swift does. It's just popular with teenagers, like sugary cereal, sappy music, and other dubious habits of the young—whose mercurial passions and fads aren't exactly a well-kept secret.
If there's any real psychological damage here, it's among America's adults, who have flung themselves into a frenzied moral panic about TikTok based on the flimsiest of evidence. I'll be happy to join them if that evidence ever becomes firm, but you have to give me something, folks. Wild screeds with literally zero behind them aren't going to do it.
There are literally public tools you can use to guess the congressional district.
Maybe instead of worrying that a company from Singapore with servers in the US might be able to do it when someone opens their app... notice that anyone could do that.
And in fact, that sort of vague region is required by almost every media company to verify they've the rights and are complying with the right laws before they serve you video or audio, let alone advertising?
I am far too old to have used TikTok but my gut feeling that it does divert youth away from real human interactions and actual two way meaningful conversations. It's entertainment used to the max.
In other words, just like television, cell phones, computer games, and everything else that kids do that the "designated old farts" complain about. And I'm definitely well into "old fart" territory these days.
Exactement !
Change scares me.
Fair points, but there's a bit of a difference in consumption. Games may suck up time, but they're interactive. TV may turn you into a receptacle, but it's often limited in time.
TikTok, blends the worst of both. Pretty much any such app (Youtube shorts, etc). Very short clips which provide little engagement except maybe a dash of dopamine and a never ending supply. Thus we have the new phrase....doom scrolling.
That said, I'm not sure this is worthy of a banning. Another hurdle for parents to manage. Obviously work and govt jobs can restrict the app from devices on their networks, as it is a security risk.
My experience with TikTok is extremely limited, but my impression was that the young "influencers" encourage their followers to interact with them. Passively viewing a screen does not seem to be something young people want from the internet.
From watching my kids and wife use it, it's basically scrolling through a never ending stream of short clips. Some eliciting a laugh, but most causing no reaction. It's basically a time eater.
Interaction in most cases is leaving a comment and likely getting no feedback.
I’m old enough that the only things that we had with which to corrupt ourselves were comic books. If you think TikTok is bad for kids, get older folks to get on it; it’ll drive the kids away for sure.
Hey, books have been doing this for literally centuries. Yeah, plain old dead-tree printed books! Whether cheap paperbacks or hardcover. Why do you think nerds are so nerdy? They learn their "human interaction" skills from ... BOOKS!
"What in the actual fuck is this about? The NRA, just to take one example, is famous for 'siccing' its members on Congress by the millions. AIPAC does it, AARP does it, and the NEA does it. It's all just ordinary political mobilization"
Well, those examples are all political nonprofits. It is a bit weird when a for-profit company does it.
True, usually they make big donations to PACs to influence legislators.
Yeah, the gun manufacturers launder their donations.
It's a bit weird when Congress is considering banning a for-profit company. If Democrats ever moved to ban Fox News, I imagine the Murdochs would quickly whip up viewer protests.
Agreed--that's a goood point. I've been struggling to come up with other examples, and that's the context that continually crops up: it's pretty rare for Congress to threaten to legislate a business out of business.
The people who are incensed about this are probably the same ones who are just fine with trump siccing his followers on to harass, dehumanize, & sometimes murder those he encourages them to hate: Muslims, Mexicans, Chinese - regardless of their citizenship status.
And that has resulted in his ignorant MAGA cult members killing strangers who weren't even of those ethnicities, or undocumented individuals. I doubt that TokTok is the clear & present danger that trump & his adherents are, emboldened by Fox & egged on by Bannon, Hannity, Miller, Carlson & the rest.
There is also this:
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/trump-just-rug-pulled-the-china-hawks
Yeah, they just haven’t caught up with Trump’s 180 on Tik Tok, i.e., we have never been at war with Eastasia.
It happened after Trump met with a billionaire investor in Tik Tok and then suddenly Trump had $93 million to secure a bond for his appeal in the second E. Jean Carroll case.
It takes him a long time to get to the most interesting part. That Tik Tok is a source of news for young people and China controls the slant the news takes. We've certainly seen how damaging a news service can be when its agenda dominates its choices.
And what is your evidence for China being in control? TikTok is social media. To accomplish this, China has to somehow convince American teenagers to post China-friendly news. There are a couple of pretty obvious obstacles to that.
This is a study from Rutgers University. It is not a hack job or a pearl clutching parent's group.
Tik Tok has tens of millions of users. There will always be a few people posting something about anything. The TikTok algorithm works to promote China approved narratives and suppress ones that China doesn't like.
https://networkcontagion.us/reports/12-21-23-a-tik-tok-in-timebomb-how-tiktoks-global-platform-anomalies-align-with-the-chinese-communist-partys-geostrategic-objectives/
And what is your evidence for China being in control? TikTok is social media. To accomplish this, China has to somehow convince American teenagers to post China-friendly news.
You seriously don't think people have looked into this?
https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf
For the record I oppose the forced sale or ban of TikTok—at least absent more compelling evidence—as I don't think such a move remotely passes cost-benefit analysis.
But it doesn't seem like a stretch that a platform owned by a firm that comes under Chinese law (no matter what their Singapore incorporation is supposed to mean) would do the CCP's bidding when it comes to the global, algorithmic treatment of news events that affect the Party's interests.
I just looked at TikTok's most viewed stories about the Gaza conflict. The most common ones were from Al Jazeera, CNN, Sky News, NPR and the NYT. No evidence there of any particular ideological bias, unless you're a rabid Fox viewer.
The most popular news story about Taiwan and China appears to be by this guy https://www.tiktok.com/@uncovering_yt?lang=en . It's a pretty simplistic account of why the US defends Taiwanese independence, sympathetic to the Taiwanese cause.
TikTok and social media in general seem to be a way a magnifying what teenagers have always done in local groups. The in-crowd will ostracize and disparage those who don't fit in for one reason or another. Now instead of a dozen or so piling on, social media can call up thousands or even millions to pile on to someone or something that seems to be opposed to the group. And this can apparently be harnessed by industries. Could it also be harnessed by a foreign country? If grownups do it (NRA, AIPAC etc) should teenagers be doing it too? Shouldn't teenagers be concentrating on their studies and more constructive social interaction?
The Nationalist Review is an arm of the security state. A popular medium that cannot be co-opted like all other domestic media and social networks has generated a hysterical response from the spooks, revealing how important stopping any dominant mass communication medium's management not under their influence is to their program.
i suspect some of the current panic is astroturf from competitors (fb, xitter, etc) as well as conservatives who fear they can't brow-beat tiktok into putting their thumbs on the scale in support of trumpco and the rnc
Just me, but I’m more concerned about loss of personal privacy, especially for young people.
On the other hand, they may realize better than us olds that we are now living in a post-privacy society. With security cameras, doorbell cams, webcams everywhere, Alexa listening in constantly, one's phone on the alert for spoken commands and logging one's position second by second via the GPS satellites and storing it on distant servers, what is this "privacy" thing of which you speak?
Right, but you can still make the choices that decrease your own exposure. Thinking about that stuff, which very few companies talk about, only happens based on having info that the practice happens and what its consequences might be. Some older (and younger) folks pay attention to that and others obviously don’t.
Can you tell what age group I’m in 😀
Moral panics (esp. about the young) are as American as Apple Pie. "Land of the Free; Home of the Salem Witch Trials."
More weight!
I believe many are missing the more interesting opportunity to generate internal opposition dissension given Trump Pro TikTok comments
(the while sordid affaire is generally silly bollocks but...
I would think the most important take here is how openly Trump is clearly compromised.
Well ... yes I think it can be used in that fashion (whether Trump is merely sucking up or actively compromised is perhaps besides the point).
This does seem to present a nice and easily understood exploitable opening relative to Trump versus the wider conservative MAGA world and its China phobia.
Quite possibly useful and effective for an appeal that undercuts Trump by a few percents which every little effect is useful.
I, for one, think that we should go back to the old fears: bears, wolves....mmmmmm - SATAN!
tikTok will eventually go the way of Facebook. I'm so old I remember when it was the hot new thing for the kids. But its share of young users has been CRATERING for the past ten years, as increasingly Facebook is where your parents and grandparents hang out and if you're there too it means they're keeping an eye on you.
I do wonder if young adults will come to regret pumping out porn over social media, but especially TikTok, tho.
Pingback: TikTok is an ordinary youthful fad. Convince me otherwise. - Kevin Drum - TikTok News
The whole kerfuffle over TikTok is just the most recent way to raise alarms among Boomers about Them Kids These Days, secure in the knowledge that (a) you can't order the Chinese government to do anything, and (b) any legislation to curtail Tik Tok would immediately be declared unconstitutional by the Supremes.
As Commie witch hunts go, this one is pretty mild.
Tiktok is shitty and works shitty. Ban it.
I resent it when Republicans seize on something said by a liberal blogger and pretend it's the opinion of "the left", so I don't think it's fair to act as if Noah Rothman is the spokesperson for "the right". The main motivation I've seen to ban TikTok is that its ultimate owner is China, and many Americans have convinced themselves Chinese people very very bad must cut all ties with China.
The NRA, just to take one example, is famous for "siccing" its members on Congress by the millions. AIPAC does it, AARP does it, and the NEA does it. It's all just ordinary political mobilization, not "intimidation and emotional blackmail.
The obvious rejoinder is that these lobbying groups aren't controlled by a malevolent Communist dictatorship that is funding Putin's war of conquest, and that itself has threatened war with multiple, close US allies (and that has been credibly accused of massive human rights abuses at home, including activities that appear uncomfortably close to genocide).
On the other hand, if TikTok's algorithm really is carrying the CCP's water, it doesn't seem to be doing a very good job, because Xi Jinping, the CCP and China in general couldn't be any less popular in the US right now. Also, are any of our allies and trade partners going to follow our lead and ban the platform? Color me skeptical: like it or not TikTok is a hugely important platform, and if the service is banned (which looks to me more likely than a forced sale, which I'm pretty sure Beijing will block), several million US creatives, marketers, advertisers and influences will take a financial hit, especially relative to their colleagues elsewhere. Openness to technology has been one of the calling cards of the US economy. I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of denying Americans access to one of the planet's three or for most important social media platforms.
> but you have to give me something, folks.
Have you read Noahpinion, Kevin? He's taking the counter to your views.
Are you, Kevin Drum, actually willing to be convinced?
This is a study from Rutgers University. It is not a hack job or a pearl clutching parent's group.
https://networkcontagion.us/reports/12-21-23-a-tik-tok-in-timebomb-how-tiktoks-global-platform-anomalies-align-with-the-chinese-communist-partys-geostrategic-objectives/
Tik Tok has tens of millions of users. There will always be a few people posting something about anything. The TikTok algorithm works to promote China approved narratives and suppress ones that China doesn't like. It doesn't admit to doing this. Even avoiding the issue of the data scraping (which the Rutger's study doesn't address) having an equivalent of Fox News on the phones of America's youth seems like a bad idea. Especially because a lot of people, who should know better, are acting like those people in the early 2000's who actually bought the tagline about Fox being "Fair and Balanced."
The idea that you can be so cognizant and clear about the way that Fox News has eroded American democracy (Sending biased news on a continuous drip feed to old people) but entirely blase about TikTok (Sending biased news on a continuous drip feed to young people) is kind of astounding.
I've seen that study and I'm blase too. China's about as popular as veneral disease these days. TikTok might be doing the party's bidding on virality, but it's obviously extremely inept.
I used to subscribe to the 'Reader's Digest' and 'Mad Magazine' 50 years ago. Both of them 'promoted America's approved narratives and suppressed (or in 'Mad's' case mocked) ones that America didn't like. I'm sure Americans were outraged to think they could not be sold in communist countries, and rightly so.