this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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Complete false dichotomy. This isn't a "my government can beat up your government" squabble.
The reality is that ByteDance has offices for CCP officials in their buildings. The Chinese government has a direct line of influence on the people who work at that company. A government that has openly hostile relations with the West (not even just the USA).
This isn't a discussion about whose government is better. It would be equally inappropriate for a US entity with direct control from the US gov to directly influence Chinese people via an algorithm to push propaganda. The Chinese firewall prevents such a thing from existing or having any significant impact, whereas the opposite isn't true.
No one was arguing about making Americans hate their government. The argument is about TikTok being a pro-CCP propaganda tool. That's it.
You keep bringing it back to "hating America", when that was never the point.
What you're saying is actually a typical diversionary tactic that pro-CCP people use. Shift the target of the argument away from the CCP, exactly the way you did.
Oh I'm sorry. You're right. I shall read my LLMs more carefully. /s
Another way to look at it is that It's allowing anyone to speak negatively about Western governments.
And the point I was making is that TikTok is pushing pro-CCP propaganda; regardless if it's anti-American or not, but that's the part you keep focusing on.
And everyone keeps going on about "censorship from the gov" but the reality is that I see tons of posts, videos, blogs, articles, reels, etc on US based social media that says all kinds of stuff about the US, Canadian, UK, European, etc, governments. It's just so odd to me that Americans are so hyperfocused on "free speech" when I see all that stuff everywhere anyways. Half the time it's literally videos FROM TikTok that are just reposted elsewhere.
The main difference is that on TikTok there's a higher number of wack jobs that peddle garbage like flat earth, chem trails, anti vaxx, etc. The difference is that on Western social media that content usually comes with a disclaimer. The CCP is more than glad to allow that content because none of their citizens will see it. Chinese people can't see content on TikTok, they have a segregated version with completely different content for Chinese users. If the CCP cared about freedom, there would be no segregation.