I think a lot of Kirn's ideas were not argued against properly. He may very well have a point about this law going too far, but as far as whether or not it's necessary misses out on a lot of things.
He asks where the threat is and calls Tik Tok a non-news platform. I fully acknowledge that this statistic may be wrong but I've seen many times that a large majority of Americans under a certain age, I believe it was 25 or 30, get their news entirely from Tik Tok. At that point for all intents and purposes it is having the same or more impact than news agencies and needs to be treated as such (whether the law currently allows for or needs to be modified is a separate issue I leave to lawyers).
Kirn also references other methods of Chinese encroachment such as buying up the debt or purchasing land near military bases and asks why Tik Tok and not those things? But the simple fact is you have to start somewhere. If there is a genuine threat of Chinese influence on America then it's not going to be countered all at once. So why is this not a valid place to start?
Frustrating listening to the Walter Kirin position. Seemed semi-analogous to the “ dog gets one free bite” defense of Tik-Tok. I thing many reasonable/rational people see the current Tik-Tok path and it’s reasonable arc to conclusion. I believe the “well….they have not done it yet” argument he proffers ignores many other world events that came with an initial large/evil surprise. May we , within bounds, and I believe the bill is, use foresight to stymie as many of those futures as we can.
Someone should talk to Preston Stewart about his TikTok experience. He has a large YouTube channel that offers some of the most objective war, conflict, and national security analysis you will find online. He is the calm voice in raging online waters. And yet, he has been banned from TikTok after having 1 million followers. Why? Was it due to nuanced reporting about Israel and Palestine? I say that because I think that is when the banning happened. If you watch his videos, you will understand that he goes out of his way to stick to reporting the facts. He tried to appeal. Didn't work. His TikTok page is blank now.
So they are very much controlling the narrative for young people, who do not have the knowledge or experience to deal with advanced manipulation tactics. They are excessively pushing Pro-Hamas propaganda, for example. A platform can absolutely throttle the content it doesn't want people to see or amplify the content it does want people to see.
Tik Tok is incredible! I learned more about my country from Tik Tok than any other source previously. To hear the intimate thoughts of average Americans was eye opening, to say the least. But Tik Tok is also HORRIFYING. It amplifies misinformation and silences truth. It quickly morphed into ANTISEMITISM Central after October 7. Every other live was about END THE OCCUPATION and or the opposite sex dicktating was womanhood is. Women have no right to have an opinion about their identity, experience, body, but males can discuss it to no end. There is so much violence against women accepted on that site, I had to get off. I got tired of the biased censorship. BAN it! BURN it! It's intentionally causing division and agitation.
Interesting subject for a debate, but very poorly selected debaters and too narrowly framed debate. The problem is real and not limited to TikTok, the consequences are serious, but no potential solutions are discussed.
The arguments like "If we’re going to demonize algorithms..." betrays complete illiteracy of the underlying technology.
Ambivalent about banning ticktock, but the assertion that social media apps can’t influence people just seems obtuse (or maybe they only can for commercial purposes…?)
The truth be known, this is not about hearing or expressing or listening to or giving both sides of an issue. Please...
To use a tried and true old story, this is just a Trojan horse answering our country and using our own laws of liberal access to our detriment. You're offering was a very lengthy and verbose essay on how not to pay attention to the truth of the matter. I object. Are there further comments?
What is missing from this dicussion is that GC never adresses Kirn's concern with the second part of the act giving the President unilateral power to ban actors considered dangerous. To me this power is unacceptable.
We shouldn't ban TikTok as a first course of action. Free speech and expression is the most important freedom that is in the bill of rights. But that doesn't mean that we should allow an adversarial foreign government to control the messaging of an important social media platform, collect and control data on 100s of millions of users or have title to the algorithms used to collect that data and the disposition of that data.
Lets be real here folks. China, under it's current government, is not our friend and hasn't been a friendly government for over 75 years. Their system of government is hostile to our system of government and the basic freedoms that it conveys to the individual citizen. Communism and a Constitutional Republic are like oil and water, they just don't mix.
The correct policy here is one of divestment. TikTok can sell it's US based business to an American corporation that is subject to our laws or they can be completely banned in this country. And that sale has to include rights to the underlying code and expungement of the data that is currently in Chinese hands. That policy is exactly how our companies are treated over in China. This issue is one of their government's creation, not ours. And our government should not hesitate to act to protect it's citizens. Under that new set of rules, there isn't any reason that TiKToK shouldn't continue to exist in the USA.
This argument was presented and unrefuted several times in the debate - "This algorithm does only one thing: give people what they’re interested in and addict them to the app. It does not somehow advance communist propaganda or secretly insert dialectical materialism into the minds of the youth." - This is flatly false. YES, it "gives people what they're interested in." BUT, it also curates their searches to procure a worldview congruent with the interests of the CCP, day after day, week after week. Wake up people!
I think many Americans and Westerners in general are missing the point. Your freedoms and democracy is being used against you. It's happening with China and it's happening with the rich oil countries in the Middle East which support radical Islam - one example is Qatar. Unfortunately many Americans - especially young ones but not only - are unable to discern the propaganda coming from these foreign agents. There need to be boundaries. Limits to what is allowed to permeate society. I do see the dangers of government overreach (especially the current government in D.C.) but it's just like what's happening at the U.S. southern border - you let everyone in, no vetting, no controls and you expect that everything will be alright. It isn't. It won't be. In short, you are allowing hostile foreign agents to contaminate your society for the purpose of destroying it. Stupid and dangerous.
Sell it or ban it, which means it will get sold. So the fear of it going away is not based on a realistic outcome IMO. We’ve let China eat our lunch for too long.
I think a lot of Kirn's ideas were not argued against properly. He may very well have a point about this law going too far, but as far as whether or not it's necessary misses out on a lot of things.
He asks where the threat is and calls Tik Tok a non-news platform. I fully acknowledge that this statistic may be wrong but I've seen many times that a large majority of Americans under a certain age, I believe it was 25 or 30, get their news entirely from Tik Tok. At that point for all intents and purposes it is having the same or more impact than news agencies and needs to be treated as such (whether the law currently allows for or needs to be modified is a separate issue I leave to lawyers).
Kirn also references other methods of Chinese encroachment such as buying up the debt or purchasing land near military bases and asks why Tik Tok and not those things? But the simple fact is you have to start somewhere. If there is a genuine threat of Chinese influence on America then it's not going to be countered all at once. So why is this not a valid place to start?
Frustrating listening to the Walter Kirin position. Seemed semi-analogous to the “ dog gets one free bite” defense of Tik-Tok. I thing many reasonable/rational people see the current Tik-Tok path and it’s reasonable arc to conclusion. I believe the “well….they have not done it yet” argument he proffers ignores many other world events that came with an initial large/evil surprise. May we , within bounds, and I believe the bill is, use foresight to stymie as many of those futures as we can.
Someone should talk to Preston Stewart about his TikTok experience. He has a large YouTube channel that offers some of the most objective war, conflict, and national security analysis you will find online. He is the calm voice in raging online waters. And yet, he has been banned from TikTok after having 1 million followers. Why? Was it due to nuanced reporting about Israel and Palestine? I say that because I think that is when the banning happened. If you watch his videos, you will understand that he goes out of his way to stick to reporting the facts. He tried to appeal. Didn't work. His TikTok page is blank now.
So they are very much controlling the narrative for young people, who do not have the knowledge or experience to deal with advanced manipulation tactics. They are excessively pushing Pro-Hamas propaganda, for example. A platform can absolutely throttle the content it doesn't want people to see or amplify the content it does want people to see.
Tik Tok is incredible! I learned more about my country from Tik Tok than any other source previously. To hear the intimate thoughts of average Americans was eye opening, to say the least. But Tik Tok is also HORRIFYING. It amplifies misinformation and silences truth. It quickly morphed into ANTISEMITISM Central after October 7. Every other live was about END THE OCCUPATION and or the opposite sex dicktating was womanhood is. Women have no right to have an opinion about their identity, experience, body, but males can discuss it to no end. There is so much violence against women accepted on that site, I had to get off. I got tired of the biased censorship. BAN it! BURN it! It's intentionally causing division and agitation.
Regardless, the platform (like most social media) is dumbing down society and tearing down human interaction. Ban it based on a mental heath crisis!
Interesting subject for a debate, but very poorly selected debaters and too narrowly framed debate. The problem is real and not limited to TikTok, the consequences are serious, but no potential solutions are discussed.
The arguments like "If we’re going to demonize algorithms..." betrays complete illiteracy of the underlying technology.
Ambivalent about banning ticktock, but the assertion that social media apps can’t influence people just seems obtuse (or maybe they only can for commercial purposes…?)
...or maybe it's a slippery slope toward deeper Orwellian rule.
Yes... it's a CCP propaganda machine using neuroscience to erode western society, and melt kids brains.
The truth be known, this is not about hearing or expressing or listening to or giving both sides of an issue. Please...
To use a tried and true old story, this is just a Trojan horse answering our country and using our own laws of liberal access to our detriment. You're offering was a very lengthy and verbose essay on how not to pay attention to the truth of the matter. I object. Are there further comments?
Wait, so this debate isn’t about data privacy and what access China has to our personal info? Then WTF are we talking about??!!!
What is missing from this dicussion is that GC never adresses Kirn's concern with the second part of the act giving the President unilateral power to ban actors considered dangerous. To me this power is unacceptable.
We shouldn't ban TikTok as a first course of action. Free speech and expression is the most important freedom that is in the bill of rights. But that doesn't mean that we should allow an adversarial foreign government to control the messaging of an important social media platform, collect and control data on 100s of millions of users or have title to the algorithms used to collect that data and the disposition of that data.
Lets be real here folks. China, under it's current government, is not our friend and hasn't been a friendly government for over 75 years. Their system of government is hostile to our system of government and the basic freedoms that it conveys to the individual citizen. Communism and a Constitutional Republic are like oil and water, they just don't mix.
The correct policy here is one of divestment. TikTok can sell it's US based business to an American corporation that is subject to our laws or they can be completely banned in this country. And that sale has to include rights to the underlying code and expungement of the data that is currently in Chinese hands. That policy is exactly how our companies are treated over in China. This issue is one of their government's creation, not ours. And our government should not hesitate to act to protect it's citizens. Under that new set of rules, there isn't any reason that TiKToK shouldn't continue to exist in the USA.
This argument was presented and unrefuted several times in the debate - "This algorithm does only one thing: give people what they’re interested in and addict them to the app. It does not somehow advance communist propaganda or secretly insert dialectical materialism into the minds of the youth." - This is flatly false. YES, it "gives people what they're interested in." BUT, it also curates their searches to procure a worldview congruent with the interests of the CCP, day after day, week after week. Wake up people!
I think many Americans and Westerners in general are missing the point. Your freedoms and democracy is being used against you. It's happening with China and it's happening with the rich oil countries in the Middle East which support radical Islam - one example is Qatar. Unfortunately many Americans - especially young ones but not only - are unable to discern the propaganda coming from these foreign agents. There need to be boundaries. Limits to what is allowed to permeate society. I do see the dangers of government overreach (especially the current government in D.C.) but it's just like what's happening at the U.S. southern border - you let everyone in, no vetting, no controls and you expect that everything will be alright. It isn't. It won't be. In short, you are allowing hostile foreign agents to contaminate your society for the purpose of destroying it. Stupid and dangerous.
Sell it or ban it, which means it will get sold. So the fear of it going away is not based on a realistic outcome IMO. We’ve let China eat our lunch for too long.