Here's Bernie Sanders from a year ago talking about how a handful of companies control the news people see, read, and hear. TL:DR - He makes the argument that it's not fake news, that journalists are usually hard-working and honest. He says the problem is the limitation of allowed discussion - what topics make it to the consumer. He says for instance that he's never asked about wealth and income inequality.

I believe TikTok is being banned because as it stands now it brings topics outside the limits of allowed discussion to a lot of eyes in ways US government/companies haven't proven able to control. If the issues justifying a potential ban were truly data security or mental health as some argue (not without merit mind you), then the legislation to address those issues would look a lot different and include companies like Meta, Google, Instagram, etc. Those are valid concerns but the new measure is clearly not designed around them.

Finally, we've seen how Trump can tie up the courts for months on end even after all his self-snitching. Thus I very much doubt we'll see any actual action in the 9 months + 3 months grace period laid out for the resolution of the TikTok matter. There are too many constitutional and business law challenges in my (admittedly layman's) reading of expert opinion.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 27 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I believe TikTok is being banned because as it stands now it brings topics outside the limits of allowed discussion to a lot of eyes in ways US government/companies haven't proven able to control

I mean, if this were true, that would mean you wouldn't be able to find similar content on Western platforms. Are you really saying similar content isn't readily available on YouTube? If so, what content?

[–] GrymEdm@lemmy.world 26 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

That's a solid criticism and I upvoted. I hadn't thought about YouTube. Anecdotally I've had factual comments about how many kids are killed, what Israeli politicians say, etc. auto-moderated into oblivion on YouTube. But at the same time I get a lot of the facts I use from YouTube (basically never been on TikTok) so it holds water. I also get a lot of info from other sources, but I can't think of something specific I'd get from them that I could never find on YouTube.

In my defense, I'm basing my opinion on why TikTok is particularly targeted on interviews like this one with Ted Cruz. He talks about how TikTok is specifically designed to push messages that are harmful to America, including what he calls pro-Hamas content but I suspect is actually anti-Israeli policy, pro-Palestine content. That is why I would argue there's some evidence of a campaign against TikTok in particular that might skip over YouTube or other major platforms. Perhaps the Western powers feel that YouTube is still acceptably moderated towards their interests whereas TikTok isn't. Perhaps Google is just too influential domestically.

Edit: I found a video I was looking for: Biden talking about passing the TikTok/Israel funding/Ukraine funding package. A bit of language he uses that I think is telling is "it continues America’s leadership in the world and everyone knows it" which could signal US dominance as a motivation and thus TikTok as a target and not US companies.

That doesn't mean your point isn't worth discussion, or that my points aren't opinion. I'm interested to see how it develops. I've based my opinion on the conversations I can find and language used, but I'm open to adjusting my view if evidence prompts that.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 19 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

I think this ban is completely agnostic re: content. The issue is more fundamental -- it's fully owned and operated by people in China. This is a geopolitical battle that is currently playing out across many industries. Social media grabs headlines where less sexy industry battles do not.

I think Tom Nicholas gives a great overview.

Also, fuck Ted Cruz with a 20 inch dildo. Don't take anything that sniveling carcass has to say seriously.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

it’s fully owned and operated by people in China

US private equity firms own more than anyone. WSJ: What Is TikTok Worth? Some Say $20 Billion, Others Say $100 Billion

[ByteDance founder] Zhang owns 20% of ByteDance, according to the company, though super shares have given him larger voting rights. Roughly 60% of ByteDance is owned by global institutional investors including Carlyle Group, General Atlantic and Susquehanna International Group. The remaining 20% is owned by company employees.

The CEO is Singaporean Shou Zi Chew and the VP is American Michael Beckerman.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 2 points 6 months ago

TikTok is a subsidiary of ByteDance, and that the Chinese government exerts significant political influence over ByteDance really is not a question

[–] Marketsupreme@lemm.ee 8 points 6 months ago

I think it's a many birds with one stone situation - an industrial battle, a move to monopolize for Facebook after years of lobbying, Censorship etc.

[–] Psychodelic@lemmy.world 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

For one the YouTube algorithm is absolute dog shit compared to TT, which is literally the gold standard at this point.

If you haven't tried, you're seriously missing out. It's legit incredible how good it is. I hardly use it because I prefer long-form content (and don't honestly have much time) but I absolutely can respect what they created

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Fuck all the algorithms, I don't need any of that bullshit.

[–] Psychodelic@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Nice username, btw 👍🏽

[–] Psychodelic@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

K... you alright? lol. What's with the aggression 😂

Can you show us on the doll where the algorithm touched you?

[–] Tangentism@lemmy.ml 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Western SM is already in the pocket of the state and any content that goes against their values is suppressed.

Pro-Palestinian content on Tiktok can easily get traction and receive over hundreds of thousands, if not millions of views.

Considering that younger people are not watching regular media news, channels like fox just do not have comparative reach and they aren't buying into the zionist propaganda like previous generations.

There are a lot of content creators who are articulate, succinct and organisation has come out of it. People have created sites & apps that list all corporations and products to boycott because of their support for Israel and it's had an impact.

Sure, TTs algorithm can easily push you down unpleasant rabbit holes but that's the nature of algorithms, not just specific to TT.

So there might be similar content on western SM but it's being held down and isn't showing on people feed 'organically'.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I just did a brief search on YouTube and found pro-Palestinian content posted over the past week with hundreds of thousands of views too. I'm not arguing about the quality of the platforms, I'm saying this has more to do with geopolitical corporate hegemony (aka money) than with any specific content, as evidenced by the fact that this has been on the table since well before the Oct 7 attacks

[–] weariedfae@lemmy.world 25 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Kinda like the not-so-unsupported conspiracy theory that musk bought Twitter to silence protest coordination. That Twitter was too useful to the 'masses' and the "sinister cabal" (not my words) said it needed to be taken out.

To reiterate: this is not my position but it is one I've heard that matches the sentiment expressed in the parent comment

[–] tearsintherain@leminal.space 23 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

What we certainly do know is that Musk bought twitter not to enable free speech, but to control speech according to his personal whims and beliefs.

I imagine the Saudi's went in with Musk on the twitter deal to also control and dilute unfavorable speech. The Saudi ruler is the guy that assassinated journalist Jamal Khashoggi on foreign soil because he wasn't exactly a team Saudi ruler kind of guy.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 6 months ago (3 children)

So if the Saudis went in with him, and he worked with them, then it wasn't solely his personal whims and beliefs. Just, for once, stop psychologizing celebrities and look at what's actually happening. Twitter was 100% a State Department and military intelligence asset. Musk makes most of his money from federal contracts, mostly related to military intelligence and adjacent domains. The state has all the means to stop Musk from destroying their asset with his personal whims (FTC, SEC, etc). Instead, he buys it with support from the Saudis, a family that leaders of the USA have sworn to protect for decades.

Face it. Musk's personal beliefs are merely what allows him to work with the power brokers. He is the lightning rod, the money launderer, the public face, the whipping boy, and eventually the sacrificial body. He's not running the show.

[–] Tangentism@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 months ago

Also Musk is incredibly dumb and for most people, that veil is finally falling.

Some of the real power behind the 'throne' is Peter Thiel. That guy is the worst of everything.

[–] tearsintherain@leminal.space 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

It's his wealth and ego that allows him to attract folks like the Saudi regime. Shared whims, beliefs and goals can also be a thing. The Saudi's were buying influence. Kind of like how the Crown Prince bought Jared Kusher thanks to all the business deals he was busy working on while his father-in-law was president. Kushner the self-serving stooge of the Saudi Crown Prince helped sweep U.S. intelligence reports on Khashoggi's killing under the rug. Then was gifted $2billion of investment by the Crown Prince, which not even the Saudi's believe is a good investment.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2024/03/21/jared-kushners-2-billion-investment-from-saudi-arabia-what-to-know-after-republicans-delay-subpoena/

"Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman serves as the chairman of the Public Investment Fund, and reportedly personally intervened to approve the investment and overruled a panel of advisors who called the sum “unsatisfactory in all aspects.”

No one is claiming Elon is running 'the' show, but he certainly is running some show and has done plenty of damage with his twitter buyout. If you're calling out US foreign policy and the Mid East you're not wrong. Short-term selfish goals have lead to a myriad of long-term problems. Elon is not that bright, he has the temperament of a thin skinned teenage boy that never really grew up. I still don't understand why you're making him out to be some sort of martyr though.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 6 months ago

I'm not saying he's a martyr, I'm saying he's not doing this from inside his skull but in concert with power brokers. The same is true of Kushner. Kashoggi's dad was likely involved with the CIA based on the history of his work and institutions. MBS is not some rogue mastermind - the USA, up to and including presidents, have publicly stated that the Royal Family is under their direct protection and a major part of US policy. The murder of a journo and the subsequent coverup happened within the context of US power brokers calling the shots. MBS is somewhat roguish as he seems he may be trying to decouple from the USA enough to save his house from the inevitable collapse of the USA, and the Kashoggi killing may have been part of that, so the USA powers got a little split over whether to threaten him or cover it up, so they did both, but ultimately Saudi isn't buying into Twitter with Elon as some part of a scheme against America, or against American liberals or against the Ds or whatever. MBS may be trying to purge Saudi institutions of the CIA, but his foreign policy is still constrained by his country's absolute need for American protection.

Musk didn't buy Twitter because he loves Trump and hates wokeness. He couldn't have because it's far too disruptive to power. Twitter was majorly important to power. Some moron with a lot of money, mostly money from the USA war machine, isn't going to be allowed to just go wrecking USA war machine components, especially not when there are so many controls in place. We have to see Musk not as an evil mastermind nor as a sideshow but rather as a state actor. I guarantee most nations adversarial to the USA see Musk as a state actor and not some strange independent anomaly. And if we have to see Musk as a state actor, then we have to see the purchase of Twitter as a behavior beneficial to the USA power centers and that it happened because it was beneficial to them, not simply an accident.

[–] GrymEdm@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I 100% admit that my take on the TikTok ban is opinion based on the hearings and arguments + the scope of the bill, so you aren't being unfair. I have never heard that about the Twitter purchase - I had read it was a poor decision Musk made only half-seriously and then was basically forced to follow through with.

[–] weariedfae@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The conspiracy theory, which I must again say is not my opinion, states the reluctance of the purchase was either: (A) A show put on to obfuscate "the truth", or (B) An internal power struggle between the ruling elites and Musk

Just explaining, not advocating. Please don't @ me.

[–] null@slrpnk.net 3 points 6 months ago

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/was-elon-musks-strategy-twitter-rcna118490

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 23 points 6 months ago (1 children)

TikTok is being banned for a bunch of different reasons all added together.

Republicans agreed to it, among the other reasons, because Democrats will get the blame for it and it will hurt Biden at the election.

Republicans and Democrats supported its ban because of sinophobia. It's a big, successful business in America, there's scaremongering around what data it's collecting or ways it could be used to manipulate people's opinions—ByteDance did not do itself any favours by coming out and telling all its American users to tell their Congresspeople to vote against this, which was spun as a demonstration of that power.

They also support the ban as part of an ongoing backlash against "big tech". Republicans are angry at big tech because they think it's too liberal. Democrats are angry at it for being addictive, abusing monopolistic powers, and other quite legitimate issues. The problem is that neither party is very good at actually dealing with the problem, so they just lash out wildly at whatever comes along that looks vaguely tech. Not realising that in this case, that will give way more power to Meta and Alphabet.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 21 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I think the reason it's happening now is because of the growing protest movement against the genocide in Gaza.

All the other US media companies actively sensor pro-Palestine/anti-Israel content and TikTok doesn't. Unacceptable!

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That’s a bingo.

[–] frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 6 months ago

Y'just say 'bingo'. /ref

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Maybe, but I don't think so. The US govt is infamously slow and inefficient. I've been following this and it's been a drumbeat that's been growing for years, since long before Israel's latest genocidal push began last October.

If there's any particular reason that it's succeeded now, I'd put it more down to the upcoming election.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Here's US Senator Pete Ricketts saying that we need to ban TikTok because pro-Palestine videos "have more reach than the top 10 US news websites combined"

The reason it's succeeded now is because of Gaza. Crediting the election makes no sense, how does this help anyone's election chances?

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

how does this help anyone’s election chances

It doesn't help. It hurts Biden among younger voters. Because he gets the blame for this.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So why are Democrats doing this? This isn't just a Republican thing, it's bipartisan and Biden signed it. Why?

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So why are Democrats doing this?

For all the other reasons already listed?

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 months ago

But only for those other reasons and definitely not because of TikTok being a hotbed of pro-Palestine/anti-Isrsel media content. Can't be that, right? It's just a coincidence. 🙄

[–] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

He is wrong though. When the war machine gets going we 100% have fake news. And the Journalists do not matter just look at New York Times massive Zionist propaganda takeover.

[–] Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Oh shit, how did I miss the Noam Chompsky Bernie Sanders crossover episode!?

Thanks for sharing!

[–] livus@kbin.social 9 points 6 months ago

I agree with this. I think you're right.

[–] reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.ml 7 points 6 months ago

Anyone who has spent any amount of time on TikTok knows this is true. The narrative is beyond their control there, lots of eyes see. That terrifies them.