TikTok ban in the US - what’s the aim here?

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I couldn’t see another thread on this. If there is one, please link it as it’d be interesting to read.

Is this genuine concern over harvesting of data? Or a play to pull all social media in the US under government control? Musk already owns X, if he was to buy TikTok then surely you’re looking at large swathes of social media being run by the government?

The problem is that people aren't reading the books, they are watching people with an agenda telling them what they should think about what are in the books. How many people actually read bin Laden's letter? From many, many years of posting on MN (where people would probably consider themselves to be well-informed), I know how rare it is that people actually go to the source themselves.

Propaganda is an incredibly powerful tool, and you are right, our children are basically left unprotected against it.

What is also happening is that when anyone tries to give children the tools to counteract the propaganda, that is being derided as our government trying to control their thinking.

I don't think TikTok will actually end up banned, Trump is a populist.

No one would believe a fake letter on the internet if there wasn’t so much smoke leading it to appear to be valid

It isn't a fake letter, there is a real letter, and people aren't reading it, but instead believing what other people are saying about it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12890583/americans-osama-bin-laden-poll-gen-zers.html

It is quite ironic to use the Daily Mail poll to discuss people getting their information from dodgy unbiased news sources.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/11/16/tech/tiktok-osama-bin-laden-letter-to-america

I agree, but banning this stuff isn’t the answer.

The US education system (and increasingly the UK) is patchy at best and leaves many with sub standard levels of education. This is how to fix it. Telling people they’re not allowed to read xyz, whether propaganda or not, will push more people towards it.

Apologies the second link to CNN said the TikToks had been viewed 14 million times and many were against it.
I have seen cats on robot vacuums with more views.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=why+is+tiktok+so+dangerous&atb=v457-1&ia=web

A poll commissioned by the Daily Mail isn't the same thing as a Daily Mail poll. Have you got concerns about the polling company J.L. Partners or their methods? https://jlpartners.com

All available on other platforms such as YouTube.

It is astonishing that people think that a broken education system (and I definitely include England in this) can counteract incredibly powerful propaganda on a platform designed to be addictive.

Some of the kids I teach have recorded 12 hours in a day on TikTok. I'm sure that can be solved with a lesson or two

Aside from that, how many times have you heard people say 'I wish I had been taught budgeting/healthy eating/mental health' or whatever at school, when these things were on the curriculum, they just didn't pay any attention to them.

As an aside, I'd be happy for teens to read bin Laden's letter, it's a pile of offensive crap and they'd be bored within seconds. No way would they get through it.

Point 1. It is a huge security risk. Meta harvests data for targeted ads. This is how they make money. They are not spying for a communist government. If you do not see what the issue is with foreign governments having access to huge amounts of data from foreign citizens maybe you’re the one the that needs to stay off the internet.

If this is the reason for the ban (and it very obviously isn’t) then why haven’t they first banned the worst culprits? Why TikTok?
Why not start with the places that have actually proven to be a problem? Oh wait, because their owners are some of the billionaires telling the government what to do….

So google doesn’t harvest our data?

There’s also a ‘reciprocity’ issue - American internet / social media companies like Google, YouTube, facebook, LinkedIn etc are banned in China. Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US?

Children shouldn’t be on SM at all, I agree that’s a big problem.

lol.

How is that any different to all the scam ads on Facebook or Instagram? Or all the paid for links when you search for things on Google? Or all the cheap mass-made stuff on Amazon or Etsy?

Can I ask @noblegiraffe what propaganda do you have the issue with. I know you have cited the letter but what other cases of propaganda are there on TikTok.
Just because we don't agree with it doesn't mean it's propaganda.

I agree with you people do need to make decent decisions and avoid scam ads

Everyone will just join Red Note instead so banning TikTok achieves nothing.

You sound spectacularly naive tbh you need to stop believing all the conspiracy shite you read online

He can’t! There's processes to go through that even he can’t override

Totally agree! I enjoy watching cooking, baking, crafting videos on there. Yes, you get the odd few daft videos of people burping out songs etc but I just scroll past or press dislike!

He can't. It needs to be repealed by congress.

You don't think that a shedload of videos promoting a positive view of Osama bin Laden and his terrorist attacks on the US counts as propaganda, merely something that you disagree with?

I don't use TikTok. But for other examples on other platforms some stuff I'm seeing reportedly coming out of these Rednote interactions with Americans, some of those don't pass the sniff test because of the lies they are spreading.

Musk flooding twitter with how Starmer is complicit in rape and the UK is headed for civil war I would also count as propaganda because it is definitely political in intention, and wanting to destabilise our government and install one more friendly to foreign interests.

Back to TikTok, spreading disinformation - that Wayfair conspiracy that actually hindered police from being able to investigate actual child trafficking was horrendous. I don't think that was a propaganda effort, although I could be wrong, I don't know anything really about the origins of it.

The Chinese government certainly do seem to be the winners here.

Exactly it's so dumb, like that kids story about the boy trying to block the hole in the dam with his hand, there will always be another tik tok to replace this one - the only way for the US or any western country to clamp down on these platforms is, ironically, to because like China itself and exert complete totalitarian control, which kind of defeats the purpose really