Comment by unit_circle

This is very welcome as a parent in the USA. It is also sound legally, and was a long time coming. Nothing of great value is being lost and in a year users will have moved on to something else.

There are two positive effects here: 1. A company that is meaningfully foreign is losing control of a mass media asset. 2. Children and young adults are losing access to a product that is not good for them.

A country should not allow foreign powers to control platforms with so much reach--full stop. We do not allow foreign entities to own radio stations... Imagine how much deeper these platforms penetrate a person's mind, and how much larger their audiences are. We should all be MUCH more concerned about how these apps are stretching the social fabric (throughout the world) and how every society's ability to function is effected. I challenge anyone voicing discontent at this result to question whose interests they are voicing.

American manipulation of American minds... Yea! That's the point. I'd rather have someone with interests as aligned as possible with mine working for, owning and ultimately making business decisions at these companies. Regulation as appropriate to further align them.

Which leads me into my next point: I think that everyone here would argue that TikTok is in a class of its own with regard to very engaging short form content and rapid feedback feed training. I would argue that these attributes make it necessarily vapid and reactionary, providing little to no net benefit to either the individual or society to begin with.

If you disagree, what is the value of this product to the user and to society? Does it make people's lives better? I think that when the harms are considered, the answer to both is ultimately no. There are very well-documented negative effects on focus, happiness, and anxiety in children, which persist into adulthood from social media[1]. I don't think it can be argued that something that makes you feel good and connected in the moment but disconnects you from your immediate neighbors and friends and is highly correlated with mental illness is good.

Social platforms (TikTok included) are putting our children at a disadvantage mentally compared to previous generations and need to be more regulated. If these platforms (TikTok and other short-form rapid feedback products most of all) are of dubious value to begin with, what is the harm being done here?

Finally, I conjecture that we've only gotten a taste so far of how power can be wielded through these instruments. Even if Elon decides NOT wield his asset overtly during this administration, I believe we'll see more overt demonstrations of the power of social media sites in the next few years if relations with China continue to deteriorate and Russia becomes more desperate, with Meta clearly becoming less scrupulous.

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1. https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/research/the-evidence