Why not? China doesn’t allow our social media. Why should we allow theirs? We can easily copy the best parts of the platform and let our companies take their users. Plus, social media can be used for mass political manipulation, and what justifies letting them hold that power over our population?
It’s good for our companies, it’s good for our people, and it takes away a dangerous tool from a country that is more and more an adversary.
I truly hope it is banned. Better late than never. Nothing against this rather brain-dead tech. Let Facebook/Google/Twitter have those users on the clones.
> We can easily copy the best parts of the platform and let our companies take their users.
Billions of dollars have been invested by the biggest US tech companies to try to do this, and they all fuck it up by building the product to serve advertisers first rather than users first.
Think about who is being restricted here, because it's not just TikTok. Why are you ok with the government dictating which apps you can and cannot install?
Because we absolutely do not need to even pretend to play fair when it comes to China. The government dictates what kind of content we can consume for the public good all the time. It’s as easy as saying “counties on this new human rights blacklist do not have the right to access our markets and the minds of our citizens.”
>Why are you ok with the government dictating which apps you can and cannot install?
Well, whether you agree with this statement or not. If an adversarial government is basically controlling what information people see.. especially young impressionable people who might not know any better, isn't that potentially a problem that needs to be addressed?
Sounds like the government should have a say when it's literally trying to protect it's own interests and doesn't want a foreign power being able to so easily push their own agenda.
Then pass a law that applies to all social media companies algorithms if it is so important to protect your citizens from whatever issue you see. So far, no one has been able to point to TikTok doing something horrible. I mean, we have more actual examples of malfeasance from basically every other social media company.
I don't think US social media companies are per se banned in China. They just have to obey the same Chinese rules for data storage and content moderation and record keeping that Chinese social media companies have to obey.
It's not all that different from US companies that want to operate in Europe having to obey Europe's stricter regulations in areas such as food safety and consumer protection or have to obey GDPR.
It’s pretty massively different actually. Many US companies tried to operate in China, but the theft of trade secrets and uneven playing field was so bad that they eventually all pulled out. The Chinese government very explicitly wanted to grow its own tech companies by keeping out foreign companies and stealing their trade secrets.
And, so what? It was a great policy that lead to a lot of innovation in the Chinese economy and allowed the Chinese government maximum control so it could maintain the delicate balance of its authoritarian system.
So why the double standard? They banned our companies to keep our influence out. Why not do the same? Are we a prisoner to our principles so much that we can’t even take obvious steps to defend ourselves?
Globalism is over as we know it and the West is on an inevitable collision course with China. Time we all got our heads out of the sand on this one.
Because we are a democracy with freedoms protected by the government. If we copy their tactics on digital democracy, where do we draw the line? Should we also start locking people in their houses if they have covid?
The people who have access are making boatloads of cash. Full stop. Trade is a little different, enable equal access to markets or reply in kind. I fail to see why it's in the interests of the West to do any trade with nations that don't share values. Why enable these authoritarian countries? Would this be a compelling argument for 1930s Germany? "Well, we may not agree with how they're doing things, but the prices are unbeatable!"
When ever has “being a democracy” meant, “we need to give our adversaries unlimited ability to feed propaganda and disinformation directly to our citizens”?
Our rights apply to our citizens, not to foreign governments. They should have no right to speak to us. They should have no right to do business with us. Our elected representatives can and should regulate this international trade.
It’s good for our companies, it’s good for our people, and it takes away a dangerous tool from a country that is more and more an adversary.
I truly hope it is banned. Better late than never. Nothing against this rather brain-dead tech. Let Facebook/Google/Twitter have those users on the clones.