this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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Any examples on how this has taken effect?
For starters, TikTok algorithms are made to downweight any topics relating to subjects censored in China. HERE is a link to a study on the subject from Rutger's University and nonprofit NCRI. Since NCRI also directly advises Congress, it's a big part of the information available to legislators making this decision to force TikTok's sale.
Like this video?: https://www.tiktok.com/@cancelthisclothingco/video/7345905852164918570
I'm not going to click that, but idk probably. That's the point, downweighing can't be easily observed without a large dataset.
It's a video covering all sorts of forbidden topics in China and tagged with hashtags like #uyghur and #tiananmensquare but the video showed up on people's "for you" page and engagement/views was in line with most of his other videos. On the other hand, his videos where he brings up other topics like the CIA get outright censored. He uploaded a video about Palestine and tagged one with tags like #freepalestine and then uploaded the same video again without those hashtags and the one with the hashtags has <70k views versus the >930k views of the video without the hashtags.
So you're big "Gotcha" moment was to illustrate you didn't understand the concepts after they were explained to you. That science is wrong because you found a video with views on it?
That "sCiENcE" being:
So they work off the assumption that tiktok and instagram would have similar amounts of usage for the same hashtags. Fucking why? Did they not think different platforms would have different audiences?
Meanwhile I posted a clear example that demonstrates that not only do they not suppress content critical of China, they actually suppress content of certain sensitive topics for the US. You'd know that if you clicked the link, but you can't even be bothered to read your own link, so I guess my expectations of you were too high.
That difference amounts to nothing past hundreds of millions of users, much less constrained to US Based statistics. Basically the demographics would average out at that sample size.
People don't go to tiktok for the same reasons as instagram. It's not just a function of number of people. There are a lot of people on facebook but it's got a reputation as boomerville for a reason.
Simple. When the bill was first introduced, TikTok blasted a notification telling people to call their congressman to stop them. We then had literal lemmings doing that exact thing without understanding the entire scope of the bill and why it's being done. Good fucking thing it was mostly younger kids.
Now imagine the same scenario where we have 18 year old voting adults. It can and would be able to sway an election or worse.
You mean like what Uber and Lyft did but nobody is talking about banning them? https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/4/21549760/uber-lyft-prop-22-win-vote-app-message-notifications
I completely understand why these companies are assholes, but we ALL understand why they are being assholes. Money. Greed. You gotta keep sqeezing the bottom half of Americans to get that fucking G6.
But Tiktok's intent is not money. Its power and intel. Power and influence on our American citizens. They don't care about your money. They want your data and so they can better influence you into thinking how they want you to think.
And what they want you to think directly benefits China. A weaker America is a stronger China. Fuck the CCP.
Uber and Lyft were telling voters to vote against their own interests and it worked. If you think that US companies aren't using your data to influence how you think then you're a prime example of their success. It's not just "innocent" money-making schemes, it includes manufacturing consent for wars.
Again. Asshole move. So they can make more money.
Now, how about the when TikTok influences Americans to vote to politicians that align with China. And let's just say..... China decides to invade Taiwan and America doesn't step in to stop it. Now they own 90% of advance semiconductors.
How about after China finishes with the south china seas then gets grabby and decide that Korea is now part of China again. Or when they finally invade India.
Imagine if they had a tool that can influence a country that would stop them.
None of that matters because the only thing that drives US foreign policy is money. Us whining about it because tiktok told us to would amount to nothing.
Not to mention common lemmy shills post this garbage up constantly to keep the youngins riled up. All ploys. All benefiting not us.
I would prefer legislation towards protecting our data rights too, but that ship sailed after we pissed net neutrality away, and that talking point is merely used as wedge between us. All to keep us mad at each other, ineffectual, and unlikely to vote.