> TikTok could become really important, really fast. We shouldn’t let things get to that point.
Twitter was and is still very, very popularly used to get immediate news in the event of domestic and international emergencies and it still is at this point considering it is used as a platform which agencies can use to convey information quickly and have it retweeted.
Anyone who has been on Twitter recognizes this. You can still find first-person POV from users in some really interesting situations that would otherwise not be shown on mass-media networks due to regulatory controls on what can and can't be shown.
Does that validate the use-case in Twitter being banned? Let's say the new owner doesn't want to show reporting from what is happening in Eastern Europe - does that further solidify an argument that it should be banned because it has been 'weaponized'?
The author at no point references Twitter in their article and just continues on a narrow lens on the subject matter.
What is the value in banning an app in a shroud of hypotheticals?
It didn't make a lot of sense. It was a weak argument. Until I got to this part:
In other words, even if the TikTok issue seems largely symbolic right now, the app’s dominance of American media gives China’s government a considerable amount of option value in the event of a crisis. TikTok could become really important, really fast.
In other words, it could be bad at some future time. But the US is overwhelmingly supportive of Ukraine (and there is a lot of pro-Ukraine content on TikTok) and Taiwan. Americans broadly understand these are democracies under threat and deserve support. TikTok is not in a position to change those perceptions.
Thanks for sharing. I read through the sources in the article.
> Toward the end of the 45–minute experiment, analysts’ feeds were almost exclusively populated with both accurate and false content related to the war in Ukraine
A DoD funded company says that new accounts on TikTok were exposed to correct and incorrect information the Ukraine war. This is going to be true on any social media app in the entire world.
> For years, lawmakers and commentators have feared that the Chinese government could use TikTok — which is owned by a Chinese parent company, ByteDance — to secretly distribute content sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party in order to shift public opinion in the United States.
Former employees of a separate app that shut down 3 years ago claim they were told to pin videos of pandas and tourism in China to the front page.
> TikTok can collect, which includes faceprints, voiceprints, browsing history, text messages, and pretty much anything you do on your phone
Again, not unique.
Do I like TikTok? No. But I don't think hypotheticals are enough reason to ban it. I think this is a very similar scenario to the 2016 Russian misinformation hysteria that was ultimately mostly unfounded.
