Ignoring everything else TikTok screwed up. They’re m being accused of having the ability to manipulate public opinion and elections.
So what did they do? Push alerts to millions of users telling them of a possible ban and helping them call their representatives to change a political issue’s fortunes.
Oops.
All of a sudden a ton of representatives who were on the fence jumped off and joined the bandwagon.
How is it a mistake for TikTok to ask Americans to participate in their representative democracy? Do we not remember when Google and Facebook blacked out their sites to stop SOPA from passing, how is TikTok's notification any different?
Raising awareness about a bill in Congress and giving US citizens the tools to speak to their representatives about it isn't "manipulating democracy", it promotes democracy. That is a foundational part of how American democracy is supposed to work, the reps vote on bills but the citizens have the last word - if that's so unacceptable that lawmakers would change sides to ban TikTok in response then Americans should start making funeral preparations for their democracy, because it sounds like these lawmakers want their constituents to be docile, silent and ignorant.
In a strict technical sense, you are correct. Anything that encourages individuals to participate in their government is promoting democracy. However, I think it's heavy whitewashing to look at this whole situation and says it's TikTok promoting democracy.
I find it very hard to believe TikTok is doing this being they genuinely want to promote democracy in the US. This threatens to end TikTok's influence over millions of Americans, they have a business/political stake in this. They're encouraging people to contact their representatives, not because it's in the individual's best interest, but because it's in TikTok's best interest. That's why it's manipulative.
Also, I'm of the opinion the foreign-funded propaganda is generally unhealthy for a democracy.
Edit: Just to be clear, I don't really want to ban TikTok. I don't trust TikTok, but I also don't want to increase the federal government's ability to censor what Americans can view. In the process of battling Chinese influence, I don't want the US to become more like China.
Obviously the issue that they're promoting is in their interests, but its the same for everyone else. Nobody would promote an issue that didn't benefit them! When Google and Facebook blacked out their sites to stop SOPA, that was because it was in their interests too, SOPA would have kneecapped the Web just as it was beginning to take off.
What frustrates me about this discussion is the way that people take anything TikTok does here and assumes that it's out of evil and malicious intent, with very little proof other than its murky links to China, which feels very Cold War 2.0.
TikTok's links to China aren't "murky". ByteDance is literally a Chinese company. Chinese companies are regularly coerced by the state in the PRC, in obvious ways (Jack Ma says Hi) and subtle ones (the coordinated dance to bail out Evergrande).
I'm sensitive to your demand for proof, but how much more "proof" do you want? If the PRC wants to manipulate western democracy by mobilizing a force of Gen-Z nuts via messages in their favorite app, they can do it, just like they do domestically.
In attempting to defend themselves (which is fair) they did the exact thing that their opponents have accused them of being able to do.
I don’t know what the right move for them was. Maybe it was just to say this was happening or link to a new story or something.
But saying it’s a “ban”* and helping people find the number to call their representative went over the line and made them look very bad.
*It’s not strictly a ban, only a ban on Chinese ownership. If an American company took total control they could continue to operate. So calling it a “ban” is a little disingenuous in someways although it’s also a lot easier to say
It might not result in maximum ByteDance profits, but TikTok's notification will help a generation of "youths" realize the political process affects them and help them care about technology censorship issues. This is a good thing.
They didn’t try to manipulate democracy, people didn’t vote for their representatives based on their ideas about tiktok, there was no referendum about how to handle tiktok, but of course they actually showed that they could have the influence to affect future democratic process
Contacting your representative to try to influence them is a fundamental part of democracy.
Democracy is not just voting for someone, a democratic government is intended to be directly influenced by the people continually. It's kind of the whole point of a representative democracy.
It is either part of democracy or trying to manipulate democracy, it can't factually be both for obvious reasons, I agree, contacting a representative is part of the democratic process and has been a practice happening forever.
Trying to manipulate democracy would be involving actions that aren't part of an accepted democratic process, like telling your supporters to go to assault Capitol Building and them showing up with assault rifles and pressure elected officials
Do you not see the difference in American companies asking Americans to pressure their American representatives on American legislature, vs. a Chinese company doing this? If Google tried to do the same thing in China when the CCP were debating banning YouTube their mainland employees would have been arrested and "disappeared."
Either you don't understand that American problems flow overseas or are just naive. American problems get exported en mass to other people via social media and the tech people still continue to flood with visuals on them regardless of where you are.
The whole reason this is even happening is because they've been caught pushing political content that is blatantly either pro-China or meant to stir shit up in the American population. The irony with your comment is that TikTok's masters in China already have the same power that SOPA was supposed to grant the US government. In other words the USA is trying to strip the CCP of that power.
They could've played ball and not pushed politics and we'd have left them alone to make their money but instead they tried to bite the hand that feeds.
> The irony with your comment is that TikTok's masters in China already have the same power that SOPA was supposed to grant the US government
Yes, the power of democracy. People spoke up and prevented a harmful law from being passed - why is TikTok exercising that right, in the same way as Google and Facebook, a problem? It sounds like you want the US to become like the CCP instead of vice versa.
Because TikTok is owned by one of our adversaries. They’ve been accused of pushing propaganda and they just accidentally proved how effective they can be at causing political change in the US.
Exactly what their opponents were afraid they had the power to do.
It looks REALLY bad. In this case it wasn’t anything sinister and they were open about it but tactically it was probably a massive mistake.
Also why didn’t they just tell everyone in the US? Why did only certain users get the message? Because of where they lived? Because they were voting age? They also proved they have an ability to target specific people for political action based on some (unknown) criteria.
That also looks horrible and plays right into their opponents hands.
> Exactly what their opponents were afraid they had the power to do.
They notified their users that their elected representatives were fast tracking a bill targeted at the service they were using. Negotiated in secret because those representatives knew it would be enormously unpopular with their constituents.
No, the whole reason this is happening is it distracts us from more serious issues such as Chinese labor practices. If politicians can "take China seriously" by banning TikTok they don't need to talk about barring import of products made using forced labor, say.
It looks like that has blocked about $100M in goods shipped from Xinjiang since inception -- about 1/3 of shipments from that region and less than 1% total imports from China in that period. I'm not sure that token amount counts as taking it seriously.
Or maybe trying to sway users overtly seems like a mistake?
Could trying to sway users subtly have still been a win in this instance?
I'd think a platform doing manipulation subtly is actually more dangerous, and the bigger potential threat from a platform. Because people being influenced would be less aware of it, and it's much harder for other parties to call out.
(Although, when I look at current TV news and some other outlets, there's such blatant manipulation and dumbing-down, from both political "sides", I wonder how more than a small minority of people can tolerate watching that, much less mimicking it. And calling it out just gets tossed into ineffectual echo-chamber sports-fandom-like noise. So maybe subtle isn't as additionally threatening as I'd been assuming.)
It’s unfortunate. They went about it honestly by doing it in the open, and that provided proof that they were dangerous.
If they had done it subtly, that would have proved that they had the power to do it too but if they weren’t caught it wouldn’t have blown up in their face.
Of course if they were caught it would be an even bigger deal.
Reps all of a sudden jumped on the bandwagon because one of their largest donors (AIPAC) doesn't like how the realities are broadcast to youth unfiltered and uncontrolled.
> They’re m being accused of having the ability to manipulate public opinion and elections.
I thought it was about stealing data?
> Push alerts to millions of users telling them of a possible ban and helping them call their representatives to change a political issue’s fortunes.
Not pushing the alert, would have changed nothing. And to be fair, isn't this how any organization in a democratic country works? Talking to their customers to communicate their problems? Raising awareness, animating people to talk to their local politicians, that's pretty common, isn't it?
I'd also include security concerns. Not as scary as anti-cheat rootkits from TenCent owned companies that millions of people willingly installed. Concerning nonetheless.
So what did they do? Push alerts to millions of users telling them of a possible ban and helping them call their representatives to change a political issue’s fortunes.
Oops.
All of a sudden a ton of representatives who were on the fence jumped off and joined the bandwagon.