A data-driven case for why TikTok needs to be banned before the 2024 election

A data-driven case for why TikTok needs to be banned before the 2024 election(time.com)

23 points by antgoldbloom 2 years ago | 14 comments

The Chinese government may be influencing tiktok moderation policy in various ways, but I think it's still a bit of a leap from "the relative rates of different hashtags related to the israel/palestine conflict don't appear to match opinions given in a pew poll given to a random sample of 18-29 year olds" to assuming that tiktok is suppressing pro-israel content.

That's not to say that isn't necessarily the case, but opinion polls are very different from self selected groups of people vocally producing social media content and I think the assertion that the numbers should match up requires a little bit more evidence (e.g is that usually the case in situations like this?)

plorkyeran 2 years ago | |

The hashtags and the question asked in the Pew poll are also meaningfully different. Thinking that Hamas bears a lot of responsibility for the current conflict but still not approving of Israel's response is not an uncommon view.

COGlory 2 years ago |

Banning social is the obvious logical extreme from this argument. They used Russian malice distributed via American social media as an example for why we need to ban Chinese social media, which raises the great question of: why not ban American social media too?

yorwba 2 years ago | |

The other, less obvious logical extreme is to consider why so many Americans would voluntarily consume foreign propaganda, figure out what makes it so compelling, and then produce equally or more compelling counter-propaganda.

(But I think the unspoken part is that it's not really Chinese propagandists cooking up viral stories (they're way too boring for that) but instead Americans propagandizing to other Americans, which they have First Amendment rights to do.)

threatofrain 2 years ago | |

America social media is already largely banned in China. This would just be America lagging in the exchange.

foobarian 2 years ago | |

Many countries institute bans on any political speech at all leading up to elections. I'm not sure whether this is beneficial or not, it may be well intended for all I know, but it would be very hard to justify in the United States due to the constitutional framework.

fuzzbazz 2 years ago | | |

In the democratic ones it's just a ban on campaign ads and opinion polls for the 24-48h before an election and on the election day.

caseysoftware 2 years ago | |

Because American social media only drives color revolutions in other countries! Duh.

thih9 2 years ago |

> TikTok, which has over 170 million monthly active users in the U.S.—more than half the total U.S. population of any age—is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance. We need to take that very seriously, not only because TikTok is generally influential with young Americans, but because we’ve already seen it drive political sentiment, especially on college campuses.

Then should rest of the world ban Facebook and other US social media platforms? They're foreign, influential and have been used to drive political sentiment perhaps even more than TikTok.

The article is very US centric. It does make sense, it is about US election year; still, reading it from outside of US feels strange.

In any case banning TikTok or any other platform feels like a temporary fix. I guess a long term solution should address all social media platforms somehow - but I don't know what that solution would be.

ThisIsMyAltAcct 2 years ago | |

Some countries do ban Facebook, and many others place censorship requirements on it, with which it complies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Facebook

_chu1 2 years ago |

Anything that uses slot machine styled reward mechanisms should be outlawed with our consumer protection laws. I support a TikTok ban only due to national security concerns, but that's not to say I believe American social media monoliths are doing anything right in the slightest either yet not to say they should be banned either. I made a post on a different thread about a month ago dissecting specific issues with my generation (Gen Z) and social media where I touch on different areas (I should really make a blog).

Side note : I'm quite interested, is TikTok as popular with Gen Z in Europe as it is in America?

rchaud 2 years ago |

I don't see a link being drawn between claiming TikTok is antisemitic, and banning it before the US election.

Is it that Tiktok promotes bigotry and division? Are Facebook and Twitter exempt because antisemitism there is more in line with Pew poll percentages?

ThisIsMyAltAcct 2 years ago |

draw_down 2 years ago |

Just pathetic overall. And if you think this app shuts off tomorrow and young people start feeling different about Middle Eastern geopolitics, sorry but it’s not happening.