The 'For' side mentioned TikTok's logarithm repeatedly, but repeatedly failed to make the real case as to the opportunities TikTok presents to the CCP. Specifically, the threat is not from content creation by China... instead it is by using the logarithm to amplify content that is: pro-China, and pro other adversaries of the US (Russia, Iran etc), while starving content that is unfriendly to China, Russia, Iran etc. Further, it is well known that that key strategy in overcoming a powerful enemy such as the US is to weaken it within, thus depleting its strength / power. The CCP achieves such aim by exerting its undeniable power over TikTok's logarithm to amplify content to achieve the objective of weakening the US. by amplifying content that is divisive (politically, racially, religiously, etc) while at the same time choking content that is counter to its desired messaging. And we must remember that while the predominant TikTok users are young now - they are very impressionable, and will in the future, as they reach maturity, be impacted by the CCP's propagandist content served up to them via the logarithm on the platform. It is for this reason that in absence of capability to ensure that TikTok is not a tool of the CCP - that TikTok should be banned.
I think we would make more impact if we stopped using the term "communist" and call it what it is: dictatorship. You also said Totalitarian which I like. Or when you say "communist", make it a joke and call it "so-called communist"?
I was without question on the ban side but have had my mind completely changed. The for guy had not a single argument that made sense. A total blow out.
Unfortunately, I don't think Geoffrey Cain had very strong arguments and may not have been the best person for this debate.
He didn't speak at all about what TikTok is doing to American kids right now: fostering internal division and mental health problems. As to why a hostile foreign power would seek to create internal division and damage young people - if you don't understand that then you truly have no common sense.
More could have been said about what type of content the algorithm has been proven to promote. The FP listed statistics around Israel/Gaza war, these would have shown and supported the point of TikTok and by extension China changing and influencing US policy. You can see this playing out on college campuses right now.
Another example is the role of TikTok in promoting and creating social contagion in the gender epidemic.
Finally, Walter Kirn kept equating the US to foreign autocracies! I'm not American, but even I was dismayed at his casual dismissal of the actions by China and North Korea, saying the US does bad things too. The key difference is the accountability in a democracy. Unbelievable.
At a certain point Walter Kirn asked specifically what the concerns were with TikTok. Part of the issue with the technology is its opaqueness. We don't know what content is being promoted or hidden, by who, and for what reason.
Thanks for the debate. WK’s style is smug and insufferable; GC’s approach seemed to be very regimented to his talking points. One debate strategy I suppose is say what you want to say and ignore the other person’s suppositions and entreaties. My thinking on this still is that I hope this doesn’t become another Patriot Act/FISA abuse situation, but am afraid it will….and soon.
I wasn't so interested in this debate but I keep seeing this story pop up everywhere. I'm inspired less to reflect on the specifics of the debate and look more to the heart of the issue, which it seemed like Walter was grappling towards.
Here's my take: In a world of exponential tech it cannot be the solution that governments try to regulate away every harm they can imagine coming on the horizon. Just at a structural level this is going to be a lost cause that will (a) fail to achieve its goals and (b) lead to at best an expanding bureaucratic state that bogs down the economy and at worst totalitarianism. Like with many issues today I'm increasingly aware of the powerful role of personal responsibility (in adults and with adults for their children).
There is a Buddhist parable:
"Harmful beings are everywhere like space itself
Impossible it is that all should be suppressed
But let this angry mind be overthrown
And its as though all foes have been subdued
To cover all the Earth with sheets of leather
Where could such a source of skin be found?
But with the leather on the sole of my shoes
it is as though I cover all the Earth!.."
What I'm struck by in the Tiktok discussion is that this is an app voluntarily downloaded, watched populated with content by free Americans. If it is indeed kids that are being convinced to mutilate their genitals (or whatever), then where are the parents? Why are they not protecting their children? Why is it that parents wouldn't drop off their kids to be with a stranger but they almost thoughtlessly hand their children over to literally anyone that can pipe something into their phones on the internet?
And in the case of adults who are responsible for themselves, why are you asking your government to protect you from a thing that you could much more easily protect yourself from? I don't have Tiktok so the nuances of whether or not China is bad, or has nefarious motives for my mind, are moot points. I see less than zero value in using it. I don't use Facebook, I don't ask AI to think for me, I see no reason to watch porn where men are choking out women (or whatever), etc, etc, and every other American adult is just as free as I am to make the same decisions. I'm often struck by what seems to be the underlying refrain in our culture: "Government, stop me from using my freedoms to harm myself because I don't want to have to put in the effort to be responsible, to feel the discomfort of changing my own mind/habits, to create my own boundaries!"
I would really like a cultural paradigm shift where instead of trying to beg the government to somehow federally legislate personal responsibility for hundreds of millions of Americans, instead we turn our focus to building up our own personal agency, resiliency and emotional capacity. That is the essential work of a democratic/free market citizen. Just like the case of an already sick and obese person contracting covid, if a person watches a 30 second video on Tiktok and starts celebrating terrorists, the problem started much earlier. Rather than accepting a weak, unhealthy society and playing legislative whack-a-mole aimed to protect us from the harms of the world (which will be endless and exponential), let's aim for responsibility, for leather shoes rather than covering the whole world in leather. Like policies on affirmative action or the way chronic illness is approached, let's instead take responsibility at the root of the problem rather than create expensive and ineffective band-aids for the end result. This shift would bypass the need for a lot of debating on many topics. Of course it's not always easy. But in particular with kids it is absolutely the parents' responsibility to protect them, whether the Chinese government is doing a psy-op, the deep state is trying to divide us, or we're doing it to ourselves. Does it matter? Let's build a society where the Chinese (or Russian or whatever) government could put anything they want on the internet and we're stable and resilient enough as a people to remain grounded and morally clear. Let's build a society where real life relationships and meaning are strong enough that the internet is understood at an appropriate level: it's got some nice tools but it's not real life. I don't see another sustainable pathway. There will be more Tiktoks, RTs and mind viruses to come, faster than any government can legislate.
Building you're imaginary society requires first to smash the patriarchy and build all groups prioritizing the elimination of childhood trauma incidents. Just five off these damage your brain which keeps you from regulating impulses. Every child needs safe housing, free high quality childcare education and healthcare. Do this, and propaganda doesn't take hold. True that
We are having this discussion on whether to ban a social media platform that is owned and controlled by our major adversary. It’s an interesting discussion and I understand why it needs to be had.
what about our green energy direction, completely supported by the federal government. This is where our soul dependency on the movement to this is the exact same country And political party that controls almost 90% of the production of the technology needed for solar, batteries, overproduction of electric vehicles. This overproduction of EV’s beyond the current China marketplace will mostly be dumped in our market and hinder our existing manufacturers.
I am much more concerned about this. This is like giving our adversaries the bullets for which to shoot us.
I’m sorry but Walter Kirn is a fucking idiot. He went from we shouldn’t ban TikTok, to acknowledging the Chinese is up to all sorts of odd espionage activities in U.S., but that doesn’t apply to TikTok, well actually I’m just concerned about the bill itself and how broad it is, to talking about how TikTok is a force for good because in East Palestine, Ohio people saw videos about dead fish.
The power of TikTok is its ability to influence and mobilize large groups of people within our country. How do you think massive groups of people believe the Hamas propaganda and are violently protesting in support of it? Because the algorithm exposed them to specific narratives designed to get them to act.
Imagine China invaded Taiwan, conducted electronic attacks to shut down their internet connectivity, and during the invasion started algorithmically pumping up videos of Chinese propaganda showing Taiwanese separatists talking about how they love it, no war crimes were committed, this is amazing, we’ve always wanted this. Then that trickles into the American youth psyche and we see violent protests demanding no intervention in Taiwan because TikTok showed them a happy story.
I’m a relatively conservative libertarian. But I swear you guys want to libertarian yourselves to death because you lack common sense to know that your principles only make sense to a certain point. Principles are good but judgment is necessary. To just lazily stick to your principles no matter the cost and cover your eyes and ears and hope the bad things don’t happen “because free markets” or something is stupid.
I was so severely disappointed by this debate I had to login to leave a comment. The fundamental lack of understanding of both technology and media from both of these guests. The issue at play is part of a larger market evolution of media becoming technology, as exemplified by this comment being on substack (arguably a tech company) not the NYT. While one can watch RT and easily see a statement of bias and absurdity, and even if they don't, there is the ability in a one to many broadcast to address the statements made. These blackbox algorithms are the product, not the dissemination of decentralized content. This makes it nearly impossible to audit or verify the information contrary to the provided example of RT and these algorithms can be manipulated and swayed in a virtually undetectable manner while stripping individual autonomy and individual judgement. While there is totally a valid argument to be made that this is a concern for all tech companies, the difference comes down to judicial authority and accountability. None of this was discussed or addressed, nor was the topic of generative content actively being prototyped by TikTok which begins to enable them to create bespoke content for each user. In the west manipulative or destructive overreach has historically leaked out and allowed regulatory or legal action. Also unaddressed are the national security concerns of essentially a foreign adversary being in possession of a psych profile of millions of Americans, this isn't the same of knowing what cat videos you watch. Even if an individual say a military official isn't using the application that doesn't mean they are immune for the manipulative behavior that could be used against their family. Say a military leader taking leave during a time of unrest as their child was continuously bombarded with body shaming, drugs, and destructive content ...
I found the discussion interesting because it revealed the truths that couldn't be said. Tik Tok is indefensible but arguments around freedom of speech can't be confronted directly. It's alarming that there are young people glued to this addictive media chanel 8 hours a day. It's alarming when young people start praising Osama Bin Laden. And yes, why are there fifty pro-Palestinian videos for every pro-Israel one? Does the Chinese government have their thumb on the scale because they'd like to disrupt the axis of power in the world? None of these things can be said outloud in this debate.
I agree. The problem with TikTok is less about ownership of the application, but the black box issue. While I am not a huge fan of social psychology I think it is important to bring up in the context of this debate. The challenges with TikTok is linked to an algorithm that is being trained to optimize the social contagion of underground ideas.
We see this in mental illness social contagion spread directly though TikTok. We see this in the growth of very niche and narrow political ideas that have cropped up from TikTok. It is not about user data but rather the training of an information stream that can redirect and change interest, attention, and individual action. That is the ultimate threat posed by this app. The ability to retrain focus and real-world engagement.
It is so powerful an algorithm that it is deployed differently in China. In the youth population the app promotes wildly different content that is state approved to create its own alternative social contagion. It works in almost an opposite way by limiting niche and unpopular topics. Any American who does not understand that they are using our user base as test subjects for this research is not paying attention to what is happening in our teen and young adult population in comparison to theirs.
This is not a question of enterprise control it is a question of treating broad swaths of the US population with a psychological experiment without FDA oversight or US safeguards.
The manifestation of my 14-year old daughter's mental illness is directly related to her use of TikTok. As parents we had no idea it could trigger such self-destructive behavior.
It seemed to me they were both dancing around a different debate: China is a bad guy vs. Our Gummint is a bad guy. Identifying a "bad guy" misses the point. Is our gummint also hungry for power? Yes, of course it is. Has our gummint proven TikTok to be a threat? No. But again, I think that misses the point. This isn't about punishing TikTok for doing wrong.The TikTok Ban debate should instead hinge on how and when to allow a non-US entity, benevolent or otherwise, to own/control something with far reaching influence. Isn't this debate really about the incredible reach of TikTok? If TikTok has access to 170 million eyeballs, this is clearly a much wider audience than just 13 & 14 year olds. (The question of whether TikTok is a "publisher" is also a sideshow.) I would not want to rely on any foreign gov for our rail system or our food supply (as some smaller countries do.) Certain aspects of how the US functions should be kept "in house" in my view. Mr. Kirn argues for the stalwart immunity of US audiences to influence campaigns of false ideas. There is probably no way to know this: But what role might TikTok have played in the Columbia Univ (et al) events unfolding right now? I am far from convinced that influence campaigns have no power over us. I wonder what Yuri Bezmenov would say? I could be wrong. But I don't see the US gov't in this case stifling free speech. I see this as trying to make sure free speech is not as widely available to non-US voices. My bigger concern is that our elected decision-makers don't seem able to clearly articulate what is at the heart of the matter they are making decisions about. Can we minimize fear-mongering and focus on logic-based arguments with clear reasoning?
"Today, a debate: Is American national security at risk from an Orwellian app ultimately controlled by a totalitarian regime? Or is this just McCarthyism in digital form, a government-created moral panic fueled by dubious threats of misinformation? "
No, Bari. It isn't! American national security is at risk from an Orwellian political party that supports totalitarianism under the guise of a funny., "sweet" old grandpa named Joe Biden. And you will vote for it! And then YOU will wonder why things are this way... and YOU and your staff will write stories about terrible things happening all across the nation. And you will publish cute photos of people in exotic locales reading your musings on how and why America was destroyed from within...
I am so confused by this whole "debate" discussion. Are we talking about China being bad, Tiktok being bad, the ban being bad, who owns tiktok being bad, or just generally how everyone thinks all the things at once and the other news out there is too boring to bother with? Walter thinks bans are bad, Geoff thinks China is bad, and they both seem to state that this is all so obvious as to be self evident. I went on Tiktok for a few days some time ago and I think as a technology, as rudimentary as it is (maybe because of that) it's clearly filled with trash and gibberish, with good content mixed in to make it go down easier. Like the mind melting funhouse mirror that is / was twitter. But instead of deforming only the media and elites, this is a sickness tailored for the unwashed masses. That being said, there is nothing to be done. It is out there and people are into it. It's USERS are singing its praises, regardless of lobbyists and politics, and at the end of the day if people using something want it, it will be so. Even the administration wishing to ban it said they will remain active on it until after the election (unless that is fake news?), so clearly there is a utility here to all involved, good or bad, and that tells me it will continue. All the ban is going to do (imo) is just add yet another dumb precedent that can be expanded and be even further stupefied to some horror show in the future. I guess we should all go out and invest in VPN companies in the short term? I wonder how many of those have their servers housed in china? Idk, to me it all sounds like people trying to defuse a bomb with mittens and blindfolds on. I guess good luck with that. Tiktok, and most social media ain't for me, but I ain't in the demo moving the world at the end of the day so that is prolly as it should be.
Walter, Great Job, bringing it back to reality and the law vs speculation of what might happen. And reminding people that the US government is already doing the spying on its own citizens, and that China can purchase the same data as the US government.
We had 3 years of spreading of misinformation by the government during health crisis where legitimate qualified scientists, health professionals, etc... were shut down - sadly we can't ban the government for that.
We have more to fear from own government after the passage of the FISA bill.
The 'For' side mentioned TikTok's logarithm repeatedly, but repeatedly failed to make the real case as to the opportunities TikTok presents to the CCP. Specifically, the threat is not from content creation by China... instead it is by using the logarithm to amplify content that is: pro-China, and pro other adversaries of the US (Russia, Iran etc), while starving content that is unfriendly to China, Russia, Iran etc. Further, it is well known that that key strategy in overcoming a powerful enemy such as the US is to weaken it within, thus depleting its strength / power. The CCP achieves such aim by exerting its undeniable power over TikTok's logarithm to amplify content to achieve the objective of weakening the US. by amplifying content that is divisive (politically, racially, religiously, etc) while at the same time choking content that is counter to its desired messaging. And we must remember that while the predominant TikTok users are young now - they are very impressionable, and will in the future, as they reach maturity, be impacted by the CCP's propagandist content served up to them via the logarithm on the platform. It is for this reason that in absence of capability to ensure that TikTok is not a tool of the CCP - that TikTok should be banned.
I think we would make more impact if we stopped using the term "communist" and call it what it is: dictatorship. You also said Totalitarian which I like. Or when you say "communist", make it a joke and call it "so-called communist"?
I was without question on the ban side but have had my mind completely changed. The for guy had not a single argument that made sense. A total blow out.
Unfortunately, I don't think Geoffrey Cain had very strong arguments and may not have been the best person for this debate.
He didn't speak at all about what TikTok is doing to American kids right now: fostering internal division and mental health problems. As to why a hostile foreign power would seek to create internal division and damage young people - if you don't understand that then you truly have no common sense.
More could have been said about what type of content the algorithm has been proven to promote. The FP listed statistics around Israel/Gaza war, these would have shown and supported the point of TikTok and by extension China changing and influencing US policy. You can see this playing out on college campuses right now.
Another example is the role of TikTok in promoting and creating social contagion in the gender epidemic.
Finally, Walter Kirn kept equating the US to foreign autocracies! I'm not American, but even I was dismayed at his casual dismissal of the actions by China and North Korea, saying the US does bad things too. The key difference is the accountability in a democracy. Unbelievable.
At a certain point Walter Kirn asked specifically what the concerns were with TikTok. Part of the issue with the technology is its opaqueness. We don't know what content is being promoted or hidden, by who, and for what reason.
Thanks for the debate. WK’s style is smug and insufferable; GC’s approach seemed to be very regimented to his talking points. One debate strategy I suppose is say what you want to say and ignore the other person’s suppositions and entreaties. My thinking on this still is that I hope this doesn’t become another Patriot Act/FISA abuse situation, but am afraid it will….and soon.
I wasn't so interested in this debate but I keep seeing this story pop up everywhere. I'm inspired less to reflect on the specifics of the debate and look more to the heart of the issue, which it seemed like Walter was grappling towards.
Here's my take: In a world of exponential tech it cannot be the solution that governments try to regulate away every harm they can imagine coming on the horizon. Just at a structural level this is going to be a lost cause that will (a) fail to achieve its goals and (b) lead to at best an expanding bureaucratic state that bogs down the economy and at worst totalitarianism. Like with many issues today I'm increasingly aware of the powerful role of personal responsibility (in adults and with adults for their children).
There is a Buddhist parable:
"Harmful beings are everywhere like space itself
Impossible it is that all should be suppressed
But let this angry mind be overthrown
And its as though all foes have been subdued
To cover all the Earth with sheets of leather
Where could such a source of skin be found?
But with the leather on the sole of my shoes
it is as though I cover all the Earth!.."
What I'm struck by in the Tiktok discussion is that this is an app voluntarily downloaded, watched populated with content by free Americans. If it is indeed kids that are being convinced to mutilate their genitals (or whatever), then where are the parents? Why are they not protecting their children? Why is it that parents wouldn't drop off their kids to be with a stranger but they almost thoughtlessly hand their children over to literally anyone that can pipe something into their phones on the internet?
And in the case of adults who are responsible for themselves, why are you asking your government to protect you from a thing that you could much more easily protect yourself from? I don't have Tiktok so the nuances of whether or not China is bad, or has nefarious motives for my mind, are moot points. I see less than zero value in using it. I don't use Facebook, I don't ask AI to think for me, I see no reason to watch porn where men are choking out women (or whatever), etc, etc, and every other American adult is just as free as I am to make the same decisions. I'm often struck by what seems to be the underlying refrain in our culture: "Government, stop me from using my freedoms to harm myself because I don't want to have to put in the effort to be responsible, to feel the discomfort of changing my own mind/habits, to create my own boundaries!"
I would really like a cultural paradigm shift where instead of trying to beg the government to somehow federally legislate personal responsibility for hundreds of millions of Americans, instead we turn our focus to building up our own personal agency, resiliency and emotional capacity. That is the essential work of a democratic/free market citizen. Just like the case of an already sick and obese person contracting covid, if a person watches a 30 second video on Tiktok and starts celebrating terrorists, the problem started much earlier. Rather than accepting a weak, unhealthy society and playing legislative whack-a-mole aimed to protect us from the harms of the world (which will be endless and exponential), let's aim for responsibility, for leather shoes rather than covering the whole world in leather. Like policies on affirmative action or the way chronic illness is approached, let's instead take responsibility at the root of the problem rather than create expensive and ineffective band-aids for the end result. This shift would bypass the need for a lot of debating on many topics. Of course it's not always easy. But in particular with kids it is absolutely the parents' responsibility to protect them, whether the Chinese government is doing a psy-op, the deep state is trying to divide us, or we're doing it to ourselves. Does it matter? Let's build a society where the Chinese (or Russian or whatever) government could put anything they want on the internet and we're stable and resilient enough as a people to remain grounded and morally clear. Let's build a society where real life relationships and meaning are strong enough that the internet is understood at an appropriate level: it's got some nice tools but it's not real life. I don't see another sustainable pathway. There will be more Tiktoks, RTs and mind viruses to come, faster than any government can legislate.
Building you're imaginary society requires first to smash the patriarchy and build all groups prioritizing the elimination of childhood trauma incidents. Just five off these damage your brain which keeps you from regulating impulses. Every child needs safe housing, free high quality childcare education and healthcare. Do this, and propaganda doesn't take hold. True that
We are having this discussion on whether to ban a social media platform that is owned and controlled by our major adversary. It’s an interesting discussion and I understand why it needs to be had.
what about our green energy direction, completely supported by the federal government. This is where our soul dependency on the movement to this is the exact same country And political party that controls almost 90% of the production of the technology needed for solar, batteries, overproduction of electric vehicles. This overproduction of EV’s beyond the current China marketplace will mostly be dumped in our market and hinder our existing manufacturers.
I am much more concerned about this. This is like giving our adversaries the bullets for which to shoot us.
I’m sorry but Walter Kirn is a fucking idiot. He went from we shouldn’t ban TikTok, to acknowledging the Chinese is up to all sorts of odd espionage activities in U.S., but that doesn’t apply to TikTok, well actually I’m just concerned about the bill itself and how broad it is, to talking about how TikTok is a force for good because in East Palestine, Ohio people saw videos about dead fish.
The power of TikTok is its ability to influence and mobilize large groups of people within our country. How do you think massive groups of people believe the Hamas propaganda and are violently protesting in support of it? Because the algorithm exposed them to specific narratives designed to get them to act.
Imagine China invaded Taiwan, conducted electronic attacks to shut down their internet connectivity, and during the invasion started algorithmically pumping up videos of Chinese propaganda showing Taiwanese separatists talking about how they love it, no war crimes were committed, this is amazing, we’ve always wanted this. Then that trickles into the American youth psyche and we see violent protests demanding no intervention in Taiwan because TikTok showed them a happy story.
I’m a relatively conservative libertarian. But I swear you guys want to libertarian yourselves to death because you lack common sense to know that your principles only make sense to a certain point. Principles are good but judgment is necessary. To just lazily stick to your principles no matter the cost and cover your eyes and ears and hope the bad things don’t happen “because free markets” or something is stupid.
I was so severely disappointed by this debate I had to login to leave a comment. The fundamental lack of understanding of both technology and media from both of these guests. The issue at play is part of a larger market evolution of media becoming technology, as exemplified by this comment being on substack (arguably a tech company) not the NYT. While one can watch RT and easily see a statement of bias and absurdity, and even if they don't, there is the ability in a one to many broadcast to address the statements made. These blackbox algorithms are the product, not the dissemination of decentralized content. This makes it nearly impossible to audit or verify the information contrary to the provided example of RT and these algorithms can be manipulated and swayed in a virtually undetectable manner while stripping individual autonomy and individual judgement. While there is totally a valid argument to be made that this is a concern for all tech companies, the difference comes down to judicial authority and accountability. None of this was discussed or addressed, nor was the topic of generative content actively being prototyped by TikTok which begins to enable them to create bespoke content for each user. In the west manipulative or destructive overreach has historically leaked out and allowed regulatory or legal action. Also unaddressed are the national security concerns of essentially a foreign adversary being in possession of a psych profile of millions of Americans, this isn't the same of knowing what cat videos you watch. Even if an individual say a military official isn't using the application that doesn't mean they are immune for the manipulative behavior that could be used against their family. Say a military leader taking leave during a time of unrest as their child was continuously bombarded with body shaming, drugs, and destructive content ...
I found the discussion interesting because it revealed the truths that couldn't be said. Tik Tok is indefensible but arguments around freedom of speech can't be confronted directly. It's alarming that there are young people glued to this addictive media chanel 8 hours a day. It's alarming when young people start praising Osama Bin Laden. And yes, why are there fifty pro-Palestinian videos for every pro-Israel one? Does the Chinese government have their thumb on the scale because they'd like to disrupt the axis of power in the world? None of these things can be said outloud in this debate.
I agree. The problem with TikTok is less about ownership of the application, but the black box issue. While I am not a huge fan of social psychology I think it is important to bring up in the context of this debate. The challenges with TikTok is linked to an algorithm that is being trained to optimize the social contagion of underground ideas.
We see this in mental illness social contagion spread directly though TikTok. We see this in the growth of very niche and narrow political ideas that have cropped up from TikTok. It is not about user data but rather the training of an information stream that can redirect and change interest, attention, and individual action. That is the ultimate threat posed by this app. The ability to retrain focus and real-world engagement.
It is so powerful an algorithm that it is deployed differently in China. In the youth population the app promotes wildly different content that is state approved to create its own alternative social contagion. It works in almost an opposite way by limiting niche and unpopular topics. Any American who does not understand that they are using our user base as test subjects for this research is not paying attention to what is happening in our teen and young adult population in comparison to theirs.
This is not a question of enterprise control it is a question of treating broad swaths of the US population with a psychological experiment without FDA oversight or US safeguards.
The manifestation of my 14-year old daughter's mental illness is directly related to her use of TikTok. As parents we had no idea it could trigger such self-destructive behavior.
'Authoritarian meddling' is basically the definition of the entire Biden presidency.
It seemed to me they were both dancing around a different debate: China is a bad guy vs. Our Gummint is a bad guy. Identifying a "bad guy" misses the point. Is our gummint also hungry for power? Yes, of course it is. Has our gummint proven TikTok to be a threat? No. But again, I think that misses the point. This isn't about punishing TikTok for doing wrong.The TikTok Ban debate should instead hinge on how and when to allow a non-US entity, benevolent or otherwise, to own/control something with far reaching influence. Isn't this debate really about the incredible reach of TikTok? If TikTok has access to 170 million eyeballs, this is clearly a much wider audience than just 13 & 14 year olds. (The question of whether TikTok is a "publisher" is also a sideshow.) I would not want to rely on any foreign gov for our rail system or our food supply (as some smaller countries do.) Certain aspects of how the US functions should be kept "in house" in my view. Mr. Kirn argues for the stalwart immunity of US audiences to influence campaigns of false ideas. There is probably no way to know this: But what role might TikTok have played in the Columbia Univ (et al) events unfolding right now? I am far from convinced that influence campaigns have no power over us. I wonder what Yuri Bezmenov would say? I could be wrong. But I don't see the US gov't in this case stifling free speech. I see this as trying to make sure free speech is not as widely available to non-US voices. My bigger concern is that our elected decision-makers don't seem able to clearly articulate what is at the heart of the matter they are making decisions about. Can we minimize fear-mongering and focus on logic-based arguments with clear reasoning?
"Today, a debate: Is American national security at risk from an Orwellian app ultimately controlled by a totalitarian regime? Or is this just McCarthyism in digital form, a government-created moral panic fueled by dubious threats of misinformation? "
No, Bari. It isn't! American national security is at risk from an Orwellian political party that supports totalitarianism under the guise of a funny., "sweet" old grandpa named Joe Biden. And you will vote for it! And then YOU will wonder why things are this way... and YOU and your staff will write stories about terrible things happening all across the nation. And you will publish cute photos of people in exotic locales reading your musings on how and why America was destroyed from within...
I am so confused by this whole "debate" discussion. Are we talking about China being bad, Tiktok being bad, the ban being bad, who owns tiktok being bad, or just generally how everyone thinks all the things at once and the other news out there is too boring to bother with? Walter thinks bans are bad, Geoff thinks China is bad, and they both seem to state that this is all so obvious as to be self evident. I went on Tiktok for a few days some time ago and I think as a technology, as rudimentary as it is (maybe because of that) it's clearly filled with trash and gibberish, with good content mixed in to make it go down easier. Like the mind melting funhouse mirror that is / was twitter. But instead of deforming only the media and elites, this is a sickness tailored for the unwashed masses. That being said, there is nothing to be done. It is out there and people are into it. It's USERS are singing its praises, regardless of lobbyists and politics, and at the end of the day if people using something want it, it will be so. Even the administration wishing to ban it said they will remain active on it until after the election (unless that is fake news?), so clearly there is a utility here to all involved, good or bad, and that tells me it will continue. All the ban is going to do (imo) is just add yet another dumb precedent that can be expanded and be even further stupefied to some horror show in the future. I guess we should all go out and invest in VPN companies in the short term? I wonder how many of those have their servers housed in china? Idk, to me it all sounds like people trying to defuse a bomb with mittens and blindfolds on. I guess good luck with that. Tiktok, and most social media ain't for me, but I ain't in the demo moving the world at the end of the day so that is prolly as it should be.
Walter, Great Job, bringing it back to reality and the law vs speculation of what might happen. And reminding people that the US government is already doing the spying on its own citizens, and that China can purchase the same data as the US government.
We had 3 years of spreading of misinformation by the government during health crisis where legitimate qualified scientists, health professionals, etc... were shut down - sadly we can't ban the government for that.
We have more to fear from own government after the passage of the FISA bill.