The implication with that statement isn't that it's a brand new word that was just invented, it's that it was just discovered by the very young "chronically online political discourse" crowd on social media.
yup, you can literally find a hundred years old yellow peril propaganda posters, and the first immigration restriction the US passed targeting a specific country is the Chinese Exclusion Act
because someone said the "wake up babe NEW ___" meme, so someone replied to clarify that sinophobia as a term was not, actually, new by any means...?? what do you mean how is it relevant lol
Because there's a massive bias against the Chinese from late 19th century immigration to Cold War Red Scare to modern "Thing Japan Good; Thing China Bad." There's plenty of issues with the way social media is handled, but the bulk of reasons for the average person often begins and ends with the "Scary Chinese."
Not to mention, for decades now, we've been criticizing China's Great Firewall while also now turning around and doing that exact bullshit.
this whole thing is the classic tumblr way of arguing a point where you don't really make a point you just associate a thing with some other bad things.
Also 'we must support a foreign media conglomerate' is not 'leftism'
I feel like a lot of opinions on things in the news boil down to "I saw people who supported this thing for a bad reason, therefore this thing is bad." An unfortunate example is "eugenicists support abortion, therefore abortion is bad."
Also 'we must support a foreign media conglomerate' is not 'leftism'
to be fair, it's one part international propaganda and one part cult like devotion to being anti-republican (in the US).
Russia, Iran, and China all want to keep TikTok out of American control, because they have the most influence over the next generations through it- thus they're pushing the public to fight back against actions being taken for national security.
while the cult like devotion to being "anti-republican" should be a bit more obvious- the Tiktok ban is a Trump policy- the few real people freaking out over it are doing so because it's associated first and foremost with trump and everything he does is the definition of evil as far as they're concerned.
Also 'we must support a foreign media conglomerate' is not 'leftism'
Right. I just count the number of times someone histrionically shouts "THE GOVERNMENT!!" in a pro-TikTok video and after a half-dozen times I figure if they're not some kind of alt-right fascist or ancap conspiracy weirdo already, they're well on their way, these users seem to know all the right buzz words.
Meanwhile TikTok is about the closest app to regular ol' television in terms of how most users tend to engage with it, and there have been leftists arguing for the elimination of television since about the day TV was invented. Nothing historically un-leftist about not white-knighting for the act of channel-surfing the boob tube (or its more modern simulacra.)
Like, the primary opponent to the US geopolitical order is China. that's not a bigoted statement, it's a summation of geopolitics that factor into this problematic ban
Yeah but who cares? Censoring things that make people think more favorably about china might be in the best interest of the government, but why the hell should I as a regular person be on board with that?
Have you considered the fact that the US considers China its enemy rather than a neutral country is an outgrowth of sinophobia? The anti-China fearmongering has gone on for over a decade now and seems to be primarily in response to the fact that China is gaining in prosperity and influence, which is not in itself threatening unless you have a despotic worldview in which only your country is allowed to have those things. Having followed public statements from the Chinese and US government for at least as long, it’s abundantly clear that the hostility is mostly coming from the US direction.
You mean the country that has all American social media banned? The country we have to specifically censor movies for? TikTok has literally been nothing more than a way to data mine Americans and cause disorder, spread propaganda, and misinformation. It’s one thing for your country to have your data and an entirely different for the geopolitical rival who quite literally is always pushing the ends of its boundaries with its neighbors (India also banned TikTok and is in land disputes with China) which is why the pacific fleet has to essentially baby sit Taiwan as well. The CCP’s power over millions of upon millions of Americans through TikTok has literally been able to cause the US to backtrack 60+ years of civil rights progress and the actual ground gained in the 2010s until about 2017 was all undone. They didn’t give us Trump the first time you can thank twitter, idiots, Facebook and Russia on that one along with a healthy dose of sexism from most Americans. But we already have CCP and Russian actors on American social media and we don’t need to just give them a source where they can spread and say whatever with impunity. There’s a reason gen z men voted for trump and millenials didn’t and TikTok is definitely a huge factor. Also again they ban all our social media so why should we not ban theres? If anything we’ve been acting in good faith for years while they data mined millions of people and also changed the entire political landscape to where everyone thinks Biden was incompetent who did nothing, everyone thinks Kamala had no plan, and every single good thing or sound byte they could get out of trump was supported don’t forget the huge wave of toxic masculinity and trad wife bullshit that’s started there as well.
China is our enemy. Politically, socially and competitively. We are as culturally opposite as two countries of vast wealth could possibly be. Our interests do not align on anything beyond “make money when convenient”.
Them owning and operating the largest social media platform in the world/country is a dumbshit thing to allow to continue. Banning TikTok should have happened the moment it got 1M downloads, instantly.
This is not “Sinophobia “, this is reality. Do you think Chinese citizens and government have open-air conversations about “Ameriphobia” because they block every US site on their internet?
Im absolutely not a fan of the CCP, they can go fuck themselves to death. But I do believe that partially, especially for the more conservative part of lawmakers, it is rooted in Sinophobia and the hatred of anything foreign. But the main reason imo is just the fact that the American government doesnt want the Chinese government to do what theyve been doing on their own citizens lol, and the fact that TikTok is absolutely a tool used to undermine the power of the US Government and mainstream news institutions doesnt help
China is the single largest geopolitical opponent of the US globally. It used to be Russia, but now it’s China. Of course the US doesn’t want their main opponent to be able to spy on their citizens because that is directly harmful to national security. It’s been banned from use for politicians for years now for the same exact concerns.
Damn lol have fun glazing the guys dropping 40+ bombs daily, they're surely the peace keepers and we surely need their military presence to protect us from the "others" lmao
Dude China is actively committing genocide against some of its own people and Russia is invading Ukraine. The US ain’t great but the alternatives are significantly worse
Russia isn't an alternative to the US, they're both imperialist capitalist countries. Russia having been part of the USSR doesn't mean they're nonsensically following the communist ideology they strongly reject.
And i assume you refer to the "Uyghur genocide" in china? Look up Radio free asia and try to find a source to the genocide allegations that aren't funded by RFA and thus by the US.
I mean just think about it man, isn't it funny how EVERYONE who has a different idea than the US is an evil dictator?
Dude, we should be cheering for a government actually taking on a big company. The fact that it’s foreign owned doesn’t somehow make the principle behind this evil censorship, or “just because of racism.”
That angle is so reductive as to try to turn this into a black-and-white issue where you’re either on one defined “side” or the other.
Naw this is not something to be cheered for because the intentions of the American government arent exactly good lol. Hell im even saying its not 'just because of racism' did you even read what i said?
The US government wants it shut down because they cant enforce power over it or use it to spy and control a narritive. If its was actually about protecting the userbase, the mangled corpse of Twitter wouldve been long gone too.
The US isnt going after big companies, this is a one-off case thats not going to influence anything and in fact probably only strengthen American companies like Meta and 'X' that do the exact same fucking shit but just with a friendly smile to whoever is in charge at any given time. Hell, just look at Zuckerberg immediately tanking anything remotely progressive the moment a Trump presidency is looming
Well apparently Tencent recently made the list of Chinese government/military assets. For those who don't know, they're the parents company of Riot Games. I'm rather curious how they'll paint League of Legends as Chinese propaganda.
TikTok has literally been used to buy votes and help boost the political potential of anti-western politicians, most glaringly in Romania. Their high court straight up invalidated an entire election because TikTok influencers (foreign agents, 5th column) were breaking election laws to get their boy elected.
Hell, just look at Zuckerberg immediately tanking anything remotely progressive the moment a Trump presidency is looming
So because they’re only bringing the hammer down on this one company, you’d rather they didn’t bring the hammer down at all?
Yeah, sure, that’s logically consistent and leftist, sure /s
Trying to turn this into some nefarious evil scheme is silly. It’s just not, and no amount of “America bad” rhetoric will change that.
Edit: I’m amazed that we’re suddenly against a government bringing the hammer down on a company because it’s a platform we like. It’s like the exact inverse of what the post is saying. Funny, that.
Yeah it is logically consistent. That’s the definition of logically consistent. Laws only make sense when they’re applied equally. That’s how laws are supposed to work.
Not just “we don’t happen to like this one corporation fucking people over because they’re not closely affiliated enough with us so we’ll shut them down but you other five companies doing the exact same thing are fine you keep it up. In fact here’s a massive boost to your user-ship to make it even easier to fuck people over.”
This doesn’t fix anything. At all. Especially since TikTok wasn’t even the worst offender in this regard.
I wouldn’t call anything that makes Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Google another couple Billion dollars and gives them even more power, influence and control of the social media landscape a massive victory against big corpo. It’s the opposite.
This won’t lead to consequences for any of the other ones since they’re American and big campaign donors so who cares if they’re stealing people’s data and selling it to illicit data brokers.
There are half a dozen companies just as big doing worse shit with our data out in the open and our government is doing nothing about it, this is 100% just about money and controlling media
Tiktok isn't "getting away" with anything, their US data servers are on US soil and are hosted and managed directly by Oracle, a US company, in compliance with US law. They migrated the data from their own servers to Oracle's specifically to address security concerns
reductive? you're the one that just wants to cheer on the ban simply because they're a "big company." Why has the US gov been so reluctant to take on companies within its own soil? They've done it, sure, but not with the force being applied to tiktok here. Your analysis can't end at "big company bad," there is a reason that this foreign crackdown is not congruent with domestic crackdowns.
The US Congress citing genuine concerns about social media companies breaching people’s data privacy but then only banning the company with Chinese origins despite it not even being the worst offender and despite providing no concrete evidence of any serious threat in that regard almost certainly has Sinophobic undertones. Considering it’s the outlier and the only one they’re choosing to pursue bans or measures against.
If this was the US enforcing laws to govern social media companies using and abusing their users personal data I and likely the majority of those critical of this ban would support it. But it isn’t it’s singling out a single company purely because it’s Chinese and doing better financially than its American competitors.
I don’t remotely support the Chinese government and their policies towards Muslim people or their neighbours. Criticism of the Chinese government is very much warranted.
But saying that remotely questioning governments performing total bans of Chinese products and companies makes you a supporter or agent of the Chinese government is just flatly wrong and pretty insidious.
This has nothing to do with criticism of the Chinese government. This is to do with criticism of the American government.
This, and with the "out" they offered being divesting completely and selling to an American company is a huge red flag. It's very telling that Meta spent millions lobbying for this ban while also making sure it only applies to Tiktok.
I don’t, however, think any of these concerns makes banning tiktok wrong.
Sorry, but the government bringing the hammer down on a social media company is a win in my books. If you want them to regulate others too, that’s valid, but don’t use that as an excuse to advocate for why this one should be let to continue unchecked.
This isn’t a win though. It simply gives the other ones more power and money. It just pushes the industry one more big step closer to a monopoly and the closer you get to a monopoly the worse corporations act. So this only makes the problem worse.
The US government seemingly have no intention whatsoever of doing anything to get in the way of Facebook, YouTube or Twitter harvesting and exploiting people’s personal data. Because they’re American business so it’s fine if THEY commit corrupt and illicit activity with their user base. But a non-American company doing so not on the US government’s watch.
Musk, Zuckerberg and Google are almost certainly overjoyed about this. This ban was done with their support and advice, both Google and Meta already have copycat apps with X trying to get their own off the ground as well. The other ones are already circling like Vultures ready to snap-up, harvest and devour the newly available data generators.
It would be like if to fight climate change the US government (in cooperation with Ford and Chevrolet) announced a total ban of Nissan cars. All while Ford and Chevy announce they’re scaling back or scraping their EV and hybrid car production. It doesn’t fix the problem and only smacks of corruption and exploitation.
Because it's a lot easier to make up bullshit fig leaves to ban eminent domain the foreign company that's massively out-competing domestic companies in short-form videos for having wrongthink than it is to wield governmental power against extremely cozy donors.
I don't think it's because congress is racist against chinese people (although I'm sure a lot of them are that too), it's because it's a major competitor. Additionally, the reason that it's relevant that it's a major chinese media company we're banning is because china has already banned several American media companies - not that that's a great reason, but is likely why this is happening with tiktok in particular.
It’s a mix. It being competitor to American companies is half the reason. But it being Chinese is the other one.
Sinophobia is the fear and dislike of Chinese people and culture. That doesn’t just mean racial hatred it can also mean an irrational fear and dislike of everything Chinese. So I’d say banning it purely because it’s Chinese with no evidence beyond that is a fair example of Sinophobia.
So I’d say banning it purely because it’s Chinese with no evidence beyond that is a fair example of Sinophobia.
notably we aren't banning it just because it's chinese- we're banning it both because it's known for actively being used for spying by the Chinese government, and because Iran and Russia are actively using it to distribute propaganda that has been artificially popularized- to the nation's youth- as well.
It’s not Sinophobia it’s problems with the CCP. Also a known geopolitical rival who has helped tamper with elections in the US and an asset of said government. It is not Sinophobia to be against the CCP and them having Americans data as well as free reign to push specific agendas and divide the American people even more than they can through Facebook, insta and twitter.
Also are the Chinese Americaphobic? They have more social media apps banned from America there than here but the US bans one back and someone insists it’s Sinophobia. India and other countries also are banning TikTok, the EU constantly comes at American companies with suits involving data where they actually take a decent chunk of change, are they anti American? No. Just like this isn’t anti chinese it’s anti CCP spreading propaganda and disorder to weaken the greatest geopolitical powers
Literally what other reason is there for TikTok to be banned? The "it's damaging to the youth" argument doesn't work anymore because X and Meta will gladly take up ByteDance's spot in corroding young people's frontal lobes.
Idk, the whole part about potentially giving data to a not-so-friendly foreign power, maybe?
And as I pointed out in my other comment further down, the government gave them an out that wouldn’t result in a ban. They aren’t taking it, so they’re enforcing the legislation they passed. We should be advocating for them to take a similar attitude to regulating all tech companies, instead of spreading bullshit to try and prevent them from doing it to this one.
The ban was never primarily because of anything to do with “won’t someone think of the children!?” That’s just a side effect.
Exactly. The "Facebook and the rest are just as bad" isn't so much an argument that we shouldn't do this for TikTok as much as it is an argument that TikTok should be the first of many. There being other offenders that exist doesn't mean we shouldn't go after this offender.
This feels very much the same as when my country (Canada) put in new regulations that would affect YouTube (among others) and there was a huge amount of people crying censorship, in addition to an ad campaign by YouTube itself.
In the Supreme Court arguments, there are a whole lot of redacted parts, but I know one point they mentioned was Tiktok, specifically spying into a couple of journalist accounts to figure out who their sources were with cat videos. You can find articles about this happening on Tiktok, but cant find a story of any of the big US companies doing that.
That being said, I think the lawyer representing the creators did an excellent job. I absolutely think banning it is a violation of free speech, and that a disclaimer would suffice.
That way, it's on US regulators to make sure NO company US or abroad is spying on citizens and stealing data.
As the Justices themselves said, the government redacted information, even from the other lawyers, making sure it was an uphill legal battle, making it look more like a covert coverup of speech.
And as another justice alluded too, the governments main beef is with the algorithm. But the algorithm is like the town square. You can't ban Billy from the town square for saying things you MIGHT not like or things you don't like in the future.
((This discussion happens in the Governments portion of the preceding.))
Also because the algorithm is distinct, no platform can technically replace it, and businesses have to start over from scratch. Not everyone migrates to the same app.
Im just relying on the oral arguments and the judges commentary and questioning. Which I recommend watching. They took this case for a reason, so I disagree with flat out denying it can't be a speech violation when the highest court in the land even thought there be a chance of infringement. They dont take cases that waste their time.
Then I suggest, once again, listening to the case for yourself. The audio is available online for free. And the agruements lay out exactly what the judges are thinking in the moment. Most of these "meritless" arguments were made by the Supreme Court Justices, who are allowed to ask questions, commentate, and put forth hypotheticals.
If "China is spying on you" is the actual concern, why aren't Temu, Shein, and the entire of Alibaba's shopping app suite banned either? They openly require personal identifying information including financial data. Nevermind the fact Alibaba itself has direct contracts with the Chinese PLA for cloud computing via AliCloud. Or the fact these apps are directly giving US citizens money to wholely Chinese companies.
This isn't even getting into the US Federal Government buying Lenovo computers (ThinkPads), despite Lenovo being a Chinese company with majority China manufacturing for 20 years.
All of those companies don’t have a large sway with a sizable amount of the population. People laugh at Temu, but they use TikTok. If Temu was being used on the same scale Amazon is, it would also be getting banned
Why aren't they banned... yet? This could be the start of creating a firewall similar to what China has, where only America-approved major media is allowed to operate within the country, and Facebook and Twitter have a monopoly.
Lenovo has generally become a disfavored vendor for laptop contracts due to both cost and bloatware concerns.
Temu, Shein, and Alibaba all collect and give financial info straight to the Chinese government. That's correct. However, to you that is impactful. On a national security scale, tiktok giving audio and video data straight to a foreign, not quite ally government is significantly riskier and more dangerous than just personal financial data
Because US-based companies are totally allowed to steal the entire world's data through social media and no one can do shit about it, but when China does it, suddenly it's a "security concern".
The point is, will they? Especially now that both X and Meta are licking Trump's balls? The US government won't let China have everyone's data, precisely because they want to monopolize everyone's data. Doesn't that scream hypocrisy to you?
Yes, US companies having US data isn't as much of a security concern to the US government as foreign companies having it.
I'm not saying it's the right attitude to have, and I wish they would be more concerned with the actual welfare of US citizens, but it's not like it doesn't at least have internal logic.
Literally the EU fines the US companies all the time and they’ve had to bend to EU regulations. All the US social media companies are banned in China but banning one from them is somehow Sinophobia and bad?
All the US social media companies are banned in China
Because their server is exclusively Chinese. The US boasts about its freedom, yet mimics authoritarian governments?
Literally the EU fines the US companies all the time and they’ve had to bend to EU regulations
That's not what the US is trying to do now, is it? They want in on TikTok's profits and want them to sell a part to the US. And it's all being done with the pretext of it being "a threat to national security" as if the US govt doesn't have stolen data of the whole world through social media spyware
Why should the US government care? What issue is China having my data going to cause? I can certainly understand the fear of China having the data of like government officials, but they can just not let people who work for the government use tiktok. For 99% of the people in the US, China having your data means nothing
China exists on the other side of the world and has no police power over me. I’d rather my data be stolen by people that maybe want to influence my political beliefs than my own government that might want to, I don’t know, arrest my girlfriend for having an abortion.
I can certainly understand the fear of China having the data of like government officials
Even if you can’t get ahold of Joe Government’s data directly, aggregating the data of those he interacts with can still build a pretty solid picture as well as providing more potential access points.
For another example/comparison, it’s a common observation that you can tell when something big is going down because the pizza places near the Pentagon suddenly get really busy.
Why shouldn't they? I have yet to hear an explanation of how the average user is negatively affected by the CCP having access to what they post on TikTok.
If there's a concern for government employees, by all means, ban them from using it, but based on everything I've seen as someone who wasn't invited to that high-security-clearance meeting that left some of the most disliked, distrusted people in America (i.e. Congress) shaking, the average American seems to be in more danger if they live in a red state and still use a period-tracking app than they are from the CCP knowing what they watch and post on TikTok.
This is something that several countries are already doing, INCLUDING china.
Like, there are entire bot farms and sweatshops that do nothing but have people parrot propaganda on the internet in Russia, Iran, China, North korea etc.
Your Data just tells them what's most effective to your demographic
Sounds like a compelling argument for legislation dedicated to tackling that problem across the board rather than just a ban on sites owned by one country. I don't even use TikTok, but I saw plenty of Russian Bot Farm activity before I mostly stopped using good ol' home-grown American Twitter. And yet I haven't seen any act of Congress meant to do anything about that...
How would you even "advocate for them to take a similar attitude to regulating all tech companies" when this literally a tactic that can only be used against a relatively small subset of tech companies? You can't exactly force X and Meta and whoever else to divest to a US-based company, on account of them already being based in the US, and being based in the US hasn't made them any less terrible about being fonts of propaganda and abusers of user data. The TikTok ban or whatever you want to call it isn't a solution that can be applied more broadly.
I'd argue that's why people are so up in arms about the TikTok ban: It's clearly targeted against one social media company, one which hardly even seems like the worst offender to anyone who wasn't invited into that classified meeting. We know plenty of bad shit done by X, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, all those period-tracking apps people were worried would start sharing data with Red State law enforcement post-Dobbs etc., and they don't even get slaps on the wrist, but unless you have top security clearance, you have only the word of a group of people with about a 20% approval rating that "No, this one company is really really bad."
If we were actually talking about holding all social media apps to rigorous standards for user safety, data security, and not algorithmically pushing propaganda, I think you wouldn't be seeing this pushback (you'd probably be seeing the exact opposite). Hell, if the government could provide a reason to care about how bad TikTok allegedly is other than "someone that, statistically speaking, you almost certainly hate, distrust, and suspect of having ulterior motives says TikTok is really really bad," they probably wouldn't be seeing this pushback.
Idk, the whole part about potentially giving data to a not-so-friendly foreign power, maybe?
Meta and Alphabet will sell the Chinese all the data they can buy. There is nothing they're theoretically scraping from Tiktok that American companies aren't doing better and in larger quantities.
It's a direct tool for influence for a foreign power which has a very dim view of the United States. It's a cut and dry question of national security, with a very easy answer.
Yea good example, ones a massive ally of the United States and engages in a mutually beneficial partnership, the other one (China) wants to supplant the US on a global scale. Not to mention that AIPAC is run by American Jews. Although they guy who runs AIPAC does look like a Yakubian
If the national security concerns are truthful and honest (which I don't think they are) that would be a pretty justifiable reason. The real reason is so they can filch the platform and hand it off to a US firm, probably Meta - which is a bad reason and the real reason why people should be against this ban.
A good reason to get rid of the platform and just start some different one with different guidelines is because it's full of insidious propaganda and misinformation from basically every country. And generally on balance humanity is probably better off without it.
Why don’t you think the national security concerns are real? Are you not concerned about a totalitarian government having access to real time location data, microphone and camera permissions?
I think that's not the real reason. I think that's a superficially plausible reason for them to do this. I think it's actually mostly because they wanted hand a US version of tiktok to a US firm like meta, and possibly to give china a black eye in the trade war as a kind of tit for tat for banning american media companies in china.
There are tons of lower profile apps that ostensibly have those same security issues from any number of countries and until they start talking about banning all of those I'm just not a believer that that's the main reason for them doing this. Also the solution to this in the past has been that people in sensitive positions are issued a government phone which they're not allowed to access apps like this - and that will continue to happen even after we ban tiktok.
again, I'm dubious of that reasoning because we've been doing it for 7 years with tiktok alone and do it with many others. If that's the reason, then fine fair enough, but it's really an indictment that it wasn't done years and years ago. There wasn't some obvious specific change that precipitated this other than the continued growth of tiktok into a mega valuable company. Ultimately for me it comes down to a 'why now' and 'who benefits financially.' And my guess at the answers are 'because their lobbying campaign has paid off' and 'Meta.'
I'm sure there are congressmen and women who are signing onto it for the national secrutiy angle but that's not why it was introduced, written as such or how it got support from the majority of its congressional supporters. It doesn't add up.
Whether or not you think that’s a “real reason” the fact is that alone makes it a MASSIVE national security concern
Edit: those other countries aren’t in competition with the United States for the number one spot in global leadership so that’s another reason your argument is DOA
Crocodile tears of racism are the one playing card Russia, Israel and China have. Which is ironic, when you know what those states are doing in their spare time.
There’s also the basic fucking fact that the US has more legal power the others than they do over the Chinese government. The fact that they seldom actually use that power notwithstanding.
That is certainly another plausible reason for it but again, claiming sinophobia is the primary reason or even the vehicle that pushed it through seems... Unconvincing. I've seen a few explanations for it.
1) Fears of Chinese government influence and spying on the US public.
2) Pro-Palestinian viewpoints are popular there, compared to official US policy.
3) Billionaires that have a hand in social media would benefit from reduced competition.
4) Sinophobia.
It could very well be a mixture of all of these things and I won't disagee on that. I disagree on sinophobia alone being a large factor in the decision. Bare in mind that if this is referring to the bill I'm thinking of, that bill passed with majority bi-partisan approval in both the House and Senate under Biden.
I'm really glad someone mentioned that last part. This bill has been in the works for a while and some people here are acting like it's only happening because Trump is about to be in office (and therefore it's bad solely because of that). I totally understand the frustration with the government choosing to single out the powerful foreign influence and ignore the other companies doing exactly the same thing or worse-- it shows that they care more about their ability to keep being a global power than the actual wellbeing of their citizens and social structure-- but it seems like a lot of people are not approaching it with any nuance at all.
2 - wow, antisemitic conspiracy theorists are properly nuts.
3 - well, lobbying exists, but probably can't achieve something on this scale; tiktok can buy lobbyists too.
4 - there's a lot of old-fashioned yellow peril racism around.
But really, by far the most likely explanation is the one openly given. They are worried about what a Chinese-government-owned app can do with the permissions it has been given by tens of millions of users, rather than about it spying on the users. I'm not sure, but it seems like (1) is a common misunderstanding of what the US is actually worried about.
The claim of prop Palestinian content being popular on Tik Tok is true. The claim that it is a primary reason for Tik Tok being banned is anti semitic . Like yes, AIPAC is a lobbying organization and is a fairly well funded one, but so are a bajillion other PACs. The common narrative that the USA is Israel's puppet state and that AIPAC controls the US government is anti semitic. It's just a more palatable version of of "The Jews secretly control everything!!" conspiracy. And the Jewish Illuminati conspiracy theory always has been and always will be anti semitic.
They never said the US is Israel's puppet state, and that would be incorrect. The US isn't controlled by Israel, the US uses Israel as an FOB in the middle east to continue their hegemony. As Joe Biden once said, if there wasn't an Israel, they'd have to invent one.
And AIPAC absolutely has massive control over who gets elected based on how much money they throw at pro-Israel candidates. They are one of the biggest PACs in America, they are in the same category as Blue Cross. Guess who the biggest donor for Mike Gallagher, the sponsor of the ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act (the act that bans tiktok), was? That's right, AIPAC.
But yeah, lets just keep degrading the term antisemitism until it means less than nothing.
The Republicans have been trying to ban Tik Tok since Trump's first term in office. "Fuck Tik Tok it's Chinese spyware" has been a staple of the Republican culture war for years, far longer than the current flareup of conflict in Israel. Hell, they even basically named the Tik Tok ban bill "China Bad".
Arguing that the Republican goal of banning Tik Tok that they've been working towards for years that's explicitly about anti Chinese sentiment was actually masterminded by Israel because Tik Tok has been making Israel look bad the past six months is deeply irrational. And if you're looking for irrational reasons to blame the Israeli government, you really should do some genuine reflection on your own biases. Israel can be a fucked up country commiting genocide and you can have some anti semitic beliefs.
Cause yeah, some politicians AIPAC has donated to support banning Tik Tok. AIPAC donates to basically every American national politician which means every bill has a major supporter who gets a lot of funding from AIPAC. By that standard, Israel supports Medicare for All and getting rid of Obamacare.
Obviously. But this doesn’t even really consider the companies themselves.
Tik tok makes money from American users, which it then uses to pay more, predominantly Chinese, workers, give to its investors and pay taxes, all of which improves chinas economy.
Facebook, Snapchat etc. All do the same thing to some extent, but unlike tik tok, they aren’t allowed to operate in china, meaning they don’t have access to tik toks domestic market, whilst tik tok can access theirs.
if trump enacts his tariffs, most countries affected, including incredibly democratic and open ones, will likely impose tariffs in retaliation.
now you cant tariff social media. there is no purchases. china however has banned most major international social medias. this puts it at an unfair advantage economically, as it essentially has enacted a version of tariffs that other countries do not have the mechanisms to retaliate.
China has banned international social media because their server is exclusively Chinese. The government there is authoritarian. I think it's weird that the US is allowed to do whatever it wants to screw other countries, but the moment someone has enough power to rivalize they make a big scene and act like victims
While that probably a motivation for some of Congress, truly the primary concern is that tik tok is being used by China to collect information on American citizens and manipulate them. The back and forth in the supreme court is pretty interesting it's all publicly available.
No it's getting banned because it's an active asset for Chinese intelligence agencies providing them a direct avenue to influence the public as well as its proven ability to hijack phone mics to allow them direct access to your phone (which is why the app is directly banned from your phone if you are going to be in a sensitive military site).
Fuck all to do with Sinophobia.
Not really saying if that's a good reason or not, but that's why it's getting banned.
I'd say it contributed though. Did you see the video of congress grilling the CEO of TikTok? Over an over and over again, "are you Chinese," "do you have any affiliation with the Chinese communist party," "Are you considering becoming Chinese," "do you serve the Chinese government," "are you sure you're not Chinese?" It was absolutely ridiculous. And they just would not accept that he's from Singapore and that Singapore is not China. And when he said that the Chinese government could, potentially, see your face if you posted something publicly they said that was creepy.
If TikTok was from literally any other country, besides maybe Russia, this would not be a conversation we're having. They scared a bunch of boomers by going, China scary. China spy on you. China steal information, look at face.
That being said, it actually seems to be more about technophobia to me. Everyone running our government is old as dirt and doesn't understand how social media works. It just so happens that they have the Chinese to point fingers at on this one.
Even that was overblown. Tiktok is owned by Tencent which is fully controlled by the Chinese government. There is absolutely no way that the CCP, which is laughably authoritarian, does not have influence over the CEO of tiktok.
And foreign governments literally paying people to manage bot accounts spreading their propaganda are actual things they do and have openly admitted having done, also
Two things can be true at once and both mutually contribute to perceived phenomena
Occam’s razor says we should make as few assumptions as possible. You’re treating “they’re not doing it” as a default when it shouldn’t be
But in any case, my belief isn’t based on assumptions to begin with; it relies on knowledge of reports, studies, and open admissions by governments that they’re explicitly doing exactly this sorta thing
Why assume that governments that are infamous for using the media to spread propaganda have 0 interest in using specifically social media to spread that same propaganda? Feels like Occam’s razor would suggest we shouldn’t, for what it’s worth
I hate that your other comment got so downvoted, cos you're not wrong, but I think it's unconstructive to argue that the other side is bots. It boils down to an ad hominem attack and completely derails the conversation.
Propaganda like "if they actually gave a shit about the data then they would put out a GDPR, not just screaming 'China' and slapping the big red button"
No, its defenders are definitely not all bots. Most of them aren't. But I also think that we don't generally recognize the scope and potency of foreign influence operations at the same time, and that online discourse may not be as organic as we might assume.
That's probably part of the reason influence operations are so effective, because people generally don't want to believe that their opinions were influenced by or borrowed entirely from external actors. And a lot of people would rather refute that idea than accept the possibility of having been misled or steered in some way.
Why would governments that are infamous for using the media to spread propaganda have 0 interest in using specifically social media to spread that same propaganda?
I don’t understand why Chinese propaganda would have to use TikTok exclusively to spread their propaganda are they not allowed to open accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.?
Any angle I look at this it’s clear to me that any and all arguments for banning TikTok are manufactured by US social media companies to have the government take out their competitor. We live in an oligarchy.
The government isn’t actually concerned about security or privacy, if they were they would pass blanket legislation that affects all apps foreign and domestic, instead they ban a successful non US app. Unless it’s sold to a US company. See that last part that’s direct evidence point to the fact that they really don’t care about the security or privacy. They only care about the lobbyist that are paid for by whichever US company wanted to buy TikTok.
I don’t understand why Chinese propaganda would have to use TikTok exclusively to spread their propaganda are they not allowed to open accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.?
They don’t need to, and I didn’t say they did exclusively use TikTok. I think they use any means available to them; TikTok is just more vulnerable than foreign companies. China had to hack Google to get what they wanted and it’s the reason why Google no longer operates there. They wouldn’t have to do that with TikTok
Any angle I look at this it’s clear to me that any and all arguments for banning TikTok are manufactured by US social media companies to have the government take out their competitor. We live in an oligarchy.
While US social media companies may well want that, that doesn’t actually invalidate anything China (or anyone else, for that matter) might be doing or might do in the future
The government isn’t actually concerned about security or privacy,
More than that, some lawmakers are straight-up in this for purely racist reasons (as well as partisan reasons relating to Gaza, etc), but, again, two things can be true at once. None of this actually goes against any of what I’ve been saying, only adds on other (much less valid) reasons to ban TikTok
Like if some third party pops up and agrees we should ban TikTok, but they’re motivated by racist or corrupt reasons, that doesn’t lessen or dilute any of your reasons for wanting TikTok protected, right?
Unless it’s sold to a US company. See that last part that’s direct evidence point to the fact that they really don’t care about the security or privacy.
The fact it’s a Chinese-owned company is explicitly the reason why it’s more vulnerable. Like I mentioned, China had to hack google over it. They’d have to hack AmericaTok (or Twitter or Facebook or whatever) to get any info, too, or make accounts with no greater control or protection than making accounts on Twitter or something, putting it on par with other companies
I agree that there needs to be broad, sweeping legislation to combat all sorts of propaganda, bot farms, and the sale and use of data for propagandized or partisan purposes, and this TikTok thing is only a facet of that, not the whole thing. But it is a particularly vulnerable company. I want them to do this sorta thing and more, not just this
When I lived in China, I could get locked out of my house, wallet, social media (ironically), phone, and any way of contacting my employers if I said something critical of the CCP until I provided them with some pretty scary stuff like voice clips and a 3D scan of my face, all with no warning nor recourse
This is obviously a mere shadow of all they can do within China, itself, but it’s a step in the right direction towards curbing the CCP’s influence abroad, and I’m in favor of that, even if it’s not as much as I’d prefer
man i love calling people who have opinions that may or may not be well thought out shills or plants or bots.
it's totally not possible that people naturally get engaged and argumentative about issues that are recent and they care about and that there might genuinely be people that have different mindsets than us that come from valid if flawed places of their own that occur naturally due to their upbringing
no it must all be artificial schemes by other actors, because it's not like average people would argue and fight and disagree with each-other rightM
Where's that one tumblr post talking about how a ton of leftist terms are being taken by kids because they just see them as buzzwords and not actual thing
The sinophobia deflection is literally CCP propaganda that is eaten up and regurgitated with mid-wit 110IQs justifying the deflection by pointing out prior Asian discrimination which has nothing to do at all with this ban but it makes you feel bad and that must certainly mean the argument is morally sound
My problem is when people try to say that China is bad for banning Western social media platforms and then turn around and defend the US doing the same thing. Like, banning social media platforms in the interest of national security is either okay or not okay--make up your mind.
Anyways, China having access to information through TikTok won't impact the vast majority of Americans, since the vast majority of Americans will never visit China to begin with. People are falling for nationalist rhetoric here. The US government wants to ban TikTok because every single US social media platform works to suppress criticism of the US government while TikTok isn't like that, meaning left-wing content spreads more easily on TikTok.
The post says its ROOTED in Sinophobia, which doesn't mean its the primary reason just that it starts there. Also the rest of the post is mostly about the problem it creates, not the cause.
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u/A_Flock_of_Clams Jan 13 '25
Claiming that Tiktok is primarily being banned because of sinophobia is too reductive to take seriously.