If you are concerned about the content that American's consume, there is no reason to single out TikTok. Instagram has been shoving the same garbage into the feeds of teenagers for nearly a decade and Reels is nearly exact clone of TikTok. There is little "educational" content on Instagram Reels. The solution would be regulate all the social media companies, like how China does.
If the problem is solely TikTok, then it most likely stems from the fact you don't like TikTok is owned by the Chinese (and you are more likely to believe nefarious claims that Xi Jinping personally told the TikTok CEO to make America dumber) which is sinophobic. You don't like TikTok just because it's a chinese company serving you the same garbage as an American one.
I believe there are valid reasons to ban TikTok, especially on state-owned devices, given the amount of data they exfiltrate, but "they are poisoning the American youth" is not a good one.
If you want TikTok banned in the US because they don't have proper data hygiene and you believe that data could be used by the CCP in the future that is fair.
If you want TikTok banned in the US because you believe that they promote dumb content as part of some strategic Chinese plot and you conveniently ignore Meta and Google, I'm going to assume that your reasoning comes from irrational fear of the Chinese. It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese).
Trying to single out the government from the people is a convenient way to justify an anti-China stance. Have you even considered the fact that even if the majority of Chinese may not like their own government, that doesn't mean they support yours?
It's perfectly fine to separate the government from the people. That is why it is fine to hate the Chinese, Israeli, Iranian, Russian, and Saudi Arabian regimes.
You can but I don’t think it’s possible to without at least some blame by association. Even if I didn’t support the invasion of Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan, I am still culpable as an American, and as a benefiter of American government policies (in general).
Yes, in Democracies people are culpable for the actions of their government. But I think the obligations of the Americans, Israelis, Russians, Chinese, etc is limited to consent to paying reparations to people their state has committed atrocities against. For example by paying a special tax which goes to the wronged people.
At the end of the day calling everything anti China and racist is just a way of deflecting and trying to justify what the government is doing.
No one is here defending their own government. Most people in most countries will freely admit when their governments do stuff that’s wrong.
But only CCP shills are here defending the CCP and trying to justify genocide, cross border arrests, mass censorship, etc etc.
For the record. Do I support my government being the NZ government. Nope. They are trying to pass some laws to prevent the next government from being able to roll anything back. Cement the things they implement even if the citizens disagree.
It's funny how in order to criticize another government we must first criticize our own. It should go without saying that nobody fully supports everything their government does. It's obvious and doesn't really need to be stated.
Yes so you don’t fully support the NZ government, but you are still a subject of and supporter of (through taxes or even maybe just plain apathy even) of the New Zealand government. And so in this way you can’t say the Chinese people are completely separate from their government, because at the end of the day they are paying taxes and letting their government do these things you object to.
So what? He doesn’t call everyone racist who criticizes the actions of the NZ government. It seems to only be CCP shills that struggle with this concept.
Nobody in the US gets confused when someone from Europe complains about US government military actions and calls them racist. Perhaps you too can learn that criticisms of the CCP have nothing to do with the Chinese citizens?
> So what? He doesn’t call everyone racist who criticizes the actions of the NZ government. It seems to only be CCP shills that struggle with this concept.
You’ve subtly insinuated that anyone pointing out some criticism of China must be calling everyone racist.
Has it occurred to you that some are indeed racist? In fact it is not OP pointing out the poster is racist, but they explained why such random allegations can be construed as racist. It is in fact his detractors who are attacking his motivation at a personal level (calling him a CCP shill) and trying to discredit his valid viewpoint without offering any reasoning.
There’s no evidence—nor is it even a good hypothesis—that somehow Tiktok is actively trying to subvert American society by feeding it garbage content. Such a conclusion is only reachable if you have an inherent bias that the motives in China towards the West are always evil. As others pointed out America produces and consumes garbage content well before TikTok… as well as companies like Meta literally copying tiktok features in shoveling garbage content… so twisting this narrative to antagonize and reframe China as the bad actor—at least in this specific case—is one rooted in inherent bias and laziness. Have you considered that the difference is simply because the Chinese government, with their well known heavy handed authoritarianism, simply not allowing TikTok to do that within China? Is western society so flawless that it is unwilling to accept its own failures that it must accuse others of active subterfuge instead?
I won’t argue with you about this anymore at a fundamental level because the issue at hand is that you are among many blindly discrediting and disregarding opposition. So I’ll ask you this for your own contemplation: is it even possible to say something or make an argument that just coincidentally isn’t anti CCP that doesn’t get us labeled as a CCP shill? If you’re going to answer avoid personal attacks and avoid “CCP shill” because that is not using any “facts” and is just a blind attempt to discredit the arguments being made. No one called anyone a racist. Some arguments and ideas were labeled sinophobic but no one made the accusation that a person must be sinophobic and therefore their ideas must be as well. But you are doing exactly that, but instead calling us CCP shills…
When people are criticizing the actions of the Chinese government and someone labels them as racist or sinophobic, the accuser is not necessarily a CCP shill but they are repeating CCP propaganda.
The CCP uses pretty strong disinformation campaigns against any criticism of them with whataboutism and false equivalences of the Chinese people with the government to claim it is “racist”.
A flood of commenters crying “Sinophobia” every time there is an article about Muslim concentration camps, zero covid failures, etc gets quite old.
Even now, your comment is prattling on trying to equivocate the comments with racism despite it being very clearly about the CCP’s policies on TikTok.
It’s not even compatible. I can criticise my government safely. You cannot say anything negative about the CCP without repercussions.
So it’s probably better you stop trying to defend and justify the CCP. It just makes you look like a supporter of an authoritarian regime that commits genocide to its own people.
Philip you’ve already showed your hand and revealed your biases by assuming things about my background… sorry but wholly unrelated as I am a US citizen and I can in fact freely criticize the CCP and I often do. But here in this thread we were talking about something specific. Since it’s not even possible to say something that doesn’t criticize the CCP that doesn’t get you labeled as “a supporter of the regime” there’s no point arguing with you. As you pointed out, you can disagree with your own government (assuming the CCP were my own government) but it doesn’t mean your government only does bad things. Rather than worrying about if I can criticize my own government, or anything about me or what I look like I am doing, why not focus on my arguments like a civilized democratic freedom of speech supporting society? Free discourse only works if you listen.
It's not like they can (short of an armed rebellion) demand to have another political party or government.
It's like saying a thug is robbing me at gunpoint so I give him my wallet. You only observe that I give my wallet therefore giving that guy my wallet was good for me and fail to observe the gun.
I agree with both of your points. This reminds me while visiting the holocaust museum. The guide explained similar conspiracy popular believe that Jews have a great secret plan to poison European society. I assumed this kind of thinking is commons in Xenophobic situations either subconsciously or un subconsciously.
People criticize Israel all the time. Criticizing the state (Israel) is unrelated to criticizing the people (Jewish). Similiarly for China, criticizing the state is not the same as criticizing the Chinese. And adding on, there's multiple types of Chinese people. There's Chinese in America, Chinese in Taiwan and Chinese in many other countries. No one fears "the Chinese" that's just CCP government brainwashing to try to trick innocent people such as yourself that any criticism of the party is xenophobia/sinophobia.
The Russian government has been actively doing it during the war in Ukraine, trying to accuse all of Europe and the US for having "Russophobia". Turns out autocrats rhyme with each other.
How can you tell whether they hate the govt or xonophobe? Some
racists use the same excuse to justify their behavior.
There is some CCP scheme to use TikTok to turn American society lazyand teach some Stems sounds very conspiracy to me.
Paranoia and conspiracy thinking are the symptoms of xenophobia.
In my home country, Youtube recommendations are mostly related to porn and I have to use VPN to access good-quality content on Netflix.
Should I assume the US want to turn my countrymen stupid and horny.
Or should I use my critical thinking youtube recomend things that are popular in my Country.
> How can you tell whether they hate the govt or xonophobe? Some racists use the same excuse to justify their behavior.
Most xenophobes tend to be pretty clear what their opinions are and rarely deny them. Also occam's razor applies. Why assume that they're xenophobic when they repeatedly deny being xenophobic and say that they don't like the chinese government (which is the more rational opinion to take)? Ask such people what they think about Chinese people and it'll become rather clear whether their viewpoints come from xenophobia or not.
> In my home country, Youtube recommendations are mostly related to porn and I have to use VPN to access good-quality content on Netflix. Should I assume the US want to turn my countrymen stupid and horny. Or should I use my critical thinking youtube recomend things that are popular in my Country.
That sounds like a "you problem". Youtube in general does not have much porn. If you're being recommended it somehow then you or someone who shares an ip address with you has been actively searching it and it has narrowed it's suggestions to suit your "interests".
Also this tiktok issue is a reverse situation. Tiktok shows one thing to China and something else to every other country. It's not just the US.
Based on my personal experience with racism. There are different type of racism. Some are extreme, some are conscious and some are unconscious. Some are in denial.
Other social media, western news, etc also show different things from country to Based on my personal experience with racism. There are different type of racism: some are extreme, some are conscious, some are unconscious, and some are in denial. Just
YouTube recommends different things from one country to another. It is the same for news and other entertainment site. For some content I have to use VPN. I think it is either due to legal issue or recommendation algorithm not brainwashing.
I was recommended porn-related stuff maybe it is because of my usage pattern or my geo locations , and maybe it is the same things with Tiktok, American like to see stupid things.
Are you Chinese? Racism against various groups of people tends to vary drastically. You can't take one sort and apply it to another.
> I was recommended porn-related stuff maybe it is because of my usage pattern or my geo locations , and maybe it is the same things with Tiktok, American like to see stupid things.
You accuse of people of racist conspiracies, but then you act racist right here.
There is a difference between people who criticize Israel based on real, factual issues (e.g., the occupation of the West Bank), and people who spin conspiracy theories about vast Israeli conspiracies to poison the minds of Americans. The former criticisms are legitimate. The latter criticisms are almost certainly antisemitism.
This TikTok conspiracy theory (it's an operation designed by the Chinese government to dumb down American youth) is exactly like the sorts of antisemitic conspiracy theories one hears about Israel. It is not like the legitimate criticisms of Israel's actions in the West Bank.
I live in Taiwan. I sometimes look at Facebook reels and Instagram.
I never come across anti China or anti US content.
I tried tiktok for a day and was bombarded with anti US content. Videos blaming the US for covid. Videos saying that covid started in the US, created by the US, etc. Videos that the US is using Taiwan to start a war with China.
I deleted tiktok and have it blocked.
You can defend China all you want. But it doesn’t change the fact that the CCP is using it to spread propaganda.
I just tried it using a VM and a VPN and I cannot reproduce your claim. Searching for "covid" and "corona", for example, literally shows me the current videos about China's crackdown on recent protests from Vice, FlashNews Australia and Sky News (as well as citizen videos from those events) as the top result. Nothing that would paint China in a positive light in any way.
I tried in… October 2021 just after I moved to Taiwan. Friend sent me some video of food fuckup (someone cooking turkey in oil annd setting everything on fire) and so I signed up. Scrolling through i had random videos of one (Chinese) person saying covid originated at fort detrick and blaming China was a US coverup. Another video (Chinese) person saying it originated in deer in the US. Another (Chinese) person saying it started in the US in august 2019 and they took it to China to try kill the Chinese.
I deleted tiktok about an hour after signing up so obviously my claim isn’t based on any significant data. And I also don’t claim to say this is prevalent.
But I never searched anything. I’m not from the US. And while on YouTube I do watch some content in relation to what’s happening in the US, China, Ukraine, Iran. It’s not a playlist. 98% of what I watch is movie trailers and tech videos.
Even on Instagram and Facebook 99% of what I watch is food related.
So I don’t expect my experience to be taken as absolute fact that China is spreading a propaganda through tiktok. But it’s my experience and based on the propaganda on YouTube (videos of YouTubers being escorted around the exact same areas in Xinjiang as “proof” there’s no genocide) I think it’s likely that there is some propaganda to paint the US in bad light.
Anecdotal evidence. Maybe it's what you were recommended based on your watch history or other data points. YouTube recommends me anti-China content all the time.
YouTube has a lot of anti China and anti US content. But you can block channels and subjects and clean it up. But the difference is anti. US content tends to be fake propaganda. Like claiming covid started in the US and was designed to kill people in China? That’s blatant propaganda. That’s anti US. Talking about the US spending money on gain of function research in Wuhan? That’s just reporting on facts. But I don’t consider that anti US.
Anti China content is just facts. If a video comes out saying there’s protesting in China due to zero covid. That’s not fake news. It’s not propaganda. It’s just something happening and CCP bots will scream “anti China anti China”
You can’t do that on tiktok.
I specifically called out Facebook and Instagram. It’s not flooded to death with propaganda.
> The solution would be regulate all the social media companies, like how China does.
Twitter and Facebook are both banned in China, isn’t it? Is that because the CCP is afraid of western ideals if freedom? Or is it protectionism? Put differently, is it because of ideological or because if commercial reasons or perhaps both?
Because, to follow your thinking, why does the CCP not simply regulate them using the same rules as is uses for homegrown companies like TikTok?
> why does the CCP not simply regulate them using the same rules as is uses for homegrown companies like TikTok?
They do, which is why TikTok is blocked. Only Douyin, a separate content silo with shared codebase, is allowed to operate. Products by American companies like Facebook or Google Search that are now blocked used to censor the content they made available in China, but then stopped.
Other products by American companies, like Microsoft's Bing and Google Ads, continue to censor and continue to operate.
People on the English-speaking internet often seem to think that American companies' difficulties operating in China stem from them being specially and unfairly singled out, but the thing is that Chinese companies operating in China have to fight the same obstacles. And the majority of companies trying to make it big in China are Chinese, so they bear the brunt of the burden.
When a company building a platform for user-generated content gets more users and more content, that would usually be something for them to celebrate, but in China it also means they need to spend more resources censoring content to remove everything that might displease the government.
E.g. HelloTalk, a language-exchange app made by a Chinese company, restricted their Chinese users' accounts in 2020, most likely because some were using the app to talk about censored topics: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/glf14q/wh...
Other Chinese companies abandon the Chinese market completely and focus on the rest of the world while blocking Chinese users from accessing their product so they don't have to fear getting shut down by the government over lacking censorship.
If the problem is solely TikTok, then it most likely stems from the fact you don't like TikTok is owned by the Chinese (and you are more likely to believe nefarious claims that Xi Jinping personally told the TikTok CEO to make America dumber) which is sinophobic. You don't like TikTok just because it's a chinese company serving you the same garbage as an American one.
I believe there are valid reasons to ban TikTok, especially on state-owned devices, given the amount of data they exfiltrate, but "they are poisoning the American youth" is not a good one.