> I wonder if the toxicity of the American culture wars can be contained this way.
Huh? Are you not aware of US social media companies?
Everything that's happening on TikTok is also happening on X, Facebook, Friendster, or whatever the kids are using these days. The only difference is that the TikTok algorithm promotes Chinese propaganda and ideology, and enriches the Chinese government and ByteDance. The US can't have that, hence this deal.
This won't affect the American downward spiral a single iota. That would require strong regulation of social media companies and adtech in general, and there would be a nationwide revolt if that were even proposed. This is far from being considered anyway, now that Big Tech is deeply entrenched in the government.
>This won't affect the American downward spiral a single iota.
Broadly speaking, I think you're probably right that the dynamics on tiktok already exist elsewhere in social media. But I do think a practical upshot of it could be a version of Tiktok where you can criticize the Hong Kong takeover or Xinxianj labor camps or harassment of expatriate dissidents or Taiwan indepence openly and not have it soft-deplatformed. Which could cause stronger domestic consciousness of those issues, and stronger solidarity with Europe and the rest of the Western world.
Oh great now Americans get to talk about things the US government could care less about while at the same time losing the ability to criticize Israel or the current administration. Does not sound like a great win. There were plenty of platforms to talk about those topics already. What didn't exist was a platform that expressly talked about things the US does not like. It could be argued that the rise in pro-palestine awareness post Oct 7 is in part to TikTok. Thats likely going away now so Americans on the whole are left worse off.
> losing the ability to criticize Israel or the current administration
When did Americans lose that ability? I didn't hear about this happening.
> could be argued that the rise in pro-palestine awareness post Oct 7 is in part to TikTok. Thats likely going away now so Americans on the whole are left worse off.
The only thing that changed is that China can't choose what you get shown, do you think that the pro-palestine videos are only there due to Chinese influence?
> When did Americans lose that ability? I didn't hear about this happening.
You haven't heard about the government pressuring universities to prevent students protesting Israel? Or about anti-BDS laws?
>When did Americans lose that ability? I didn't hear about this happening.
It fell in between the razer thin "terms & conditions" of most American service providers and the the main point of this thread: controlling the algorithm to suppress these thoughts. I will concede that Americans can still set up their own online service and yell into an empty room.
>The only thing that changed is that China can't choose what you get shown, do you think that the pro-palestine videos are only there due to Chinese influence?
anything that China does not find offensive is there.
Not being able to openly criticize the US or any other government on social media is hardly important. Free speech never existed on privately run platforms to begin with. It's delusional to think that it does or to demand it, when all users must abide with specific terms and conditions. The only people who think that are those whose views happen to align with the views of companies that run the platform. The moment that changes, as we've seen from the Twitter takeover, the previous user base will denounce censorship and deplatforming, while a new user base will celebrate "free speech". It's all a circus of ignorance and disinformation.
The main problem is that allowing foreign propaganda from a political rival to influence your citizens, while giving them free reign to exploit user data, is undeniably a matter of national security. The issue is that taking over a single platform doesn't stop foreign influence and data mining, which is also happening on all other platforms, courtesy of the adtech machinery that powers all of them. We have concrete evidence of this from the Cambridge Analytica leak, which was just the tip of the iceberg of a multi-billion dollar industry.
So unless US companies are willing to take a severe hit on their revenue and drastically change their business models, which can only happen with regulation that in practice will never be enacted, none of this will change.
If you're a user of these platforms, stop worrying about what you can or cannot say, and start worrying about what you're being manipulated to think, say, and do.
Just fwiw, Threads is basically the go-to for Taiwan stuff. It's absurdly popular in Taiwan and people recently used it to help organize one of the largest protests in Taiwan's history.
I don't think they're banning it because it promotes what China wants. I think they're banning it because it doesn't promote what the US wants. The US is not offended that you can't criticize Tiananmen Square. It's fine whether you can or can't criticize Tiananmen Square. Only China cares about that.
The reverse also happens - Gaza being the main one. China couldn't give two shits about what happens in the middle east - it's not involved at all. So it lets footage be played sometimes. But the USA cares deeply about making sure young people don't see footage of Gaza and that's the sort of thing that motivates the US to ban this app.