Comment by insane_dreamer
12 days ago
It's amazing to me how many people are derailed by the free speech argument.
This is about who controls the network, not the content on the network.
There is a law that only U.S. citizens can own TV stations. That's why Murdoch became a US citizen (allowing him to buy Fox). This is in a similar vein.
If you followed the politics of the TikTok ban, it was absolutely about the content of the network.
US Congresspeople and Senators were angry that TikTok would not censor or de-emphasize pro-Palestinian / anti-Israeli content, whereas Facebook much more actively de-boosted that kind of content. All previous attempts to ban TikTok failed to gain traction, until the Gaza war began, and that issue convinced many politicians in the US to back a ban.
I know this was a common talking point but I don't really agree it is a valid reason. It's probably just demographic and algorithmic differences that pro-Palestine content is more common on TikTok.
What would be interesting though - on all platforms, what's the organic percentage of the different view points, and whats the percentage that ends up being shown to people. I think that's what people are worried about being quietly manipulated. So even a small amount of people with some extreme view point would get promoted because China wants it, but since it's real content, it's not really obvious that it's being pushed.
I'm totally pro-TikTok btw I just don't really buy the idea that it was about this specific content.
right you really have to be not paying attention or be living in an alternative facts world. For instance look on X, there are literally thousands of paid for foreign propaganda bots trying to inject hatred and division in the USA and they have free reign and the government is not trying to stop them after Musk told them "no". Soon it starts happening to facebook, except there is no "paid" bluecheck account, the result will be the same. TikTok is a clear and present attempt by a centralized foreign advesary to do the same thing, but they will be treated differently because it's the enemy from without and not owned by an American company.
> There is a law that only U.S. citizens can own TV stations.
The communications act did not ban already-existing networks, and it did not ban specific providers. The tiktok ban is targeted specifically against one social media that the government does not like[1], with a thin veneer of "security concern" that people might specifically choose to share their contact list and that one of those contacts may be in a sensitive position.
[1] I don't even really think it's about the government not liking it! They thought they could get cheap support by drumming up anti-chinese sentiment and they ran with it. It's the most pathetic kind of politicking.
> tiktok ban is targeted specifically against one social media that the government does not like
no, it's about the ownership and control of the social media network by a foreign country (that is adversarial to the US)
the other major social networks are all US companies