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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35016 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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By more than two-to-one, Americans support U.S. government banning TikTok from Pew Research

More than twice as many Americans support the U.S. government banning TikTok as oppose it (50% vs. 22%), though a sizable share (28%) are not sure, according to a new Pew Research Center survey that comes amid intensifying scrutiny of the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.

Support for a government ban on TikTok is higher among Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party than among Democrats and Democratic leaners (60% vs. 43%). It’s particularly high among conservative Republicans (70%) and less so among moderate or liberal Republicans (46%). Among Democrats, conservatives and moderates are more supportive of a ban than liberals (49% vs. 36%).

Older Americans are much more supportive of banning the platform than younger ones: 71% of those ages 65 and older support it, compared with 54% of those ages 50 to 64 and fewer than half of adults under 50. Those under 30 stand out for being the only age group in which more people oppose banning the platform than support it (46% vs. 29%).

I can't say I'm very surprised but it's more that I assumed it was getting banned either way. I'd be interested to see the trend over time to see if there's been some manufacturing of consent.

I think that sort of support (especially since the GOP is onboard and not playing criticizing) basically gives the government all the cover they need to actually do it but we'll see.

I must admit I'm a bit surprised, both in the direction and the magnitude of the direction. A priori, I would have guessed that the strong norms of free speech and personal liberty would have made it so that Americans would generally be against a government-mandated ban on TikTok. The trends between Republicans/Democrats and conservatives/liberals doesn't surprise me, at least, since I would expect the former to be more prioritizing of stuff like protection of children from social media brainrot and protection of US citizen data from Chinese governments over freedom of people to use social media services that could be harmful to themselves and others. On a personal level, I think TikTok is probably a net negative both to US society and to US citizens, but I also think that the government setting a precedent of banning TikTok is probably a much bigger net negative to US society and to US citizens.

American attitudes towards liberty are all over the place. For example, from what I understand only a small minority of Americans support fully legalizing cocaine for adult consumption, even though one might think that few things are more of a bedrock of liberty than the right to put whatever one wants into one's own body as long as it does not immediately and directly endanger others (like, for example, swallowing a bomb that has a timer and then boarding a plane would).

I think that the widespread perception that TikTok is a non-serious toy for teenagers also works against it. Social norms already generally support censoring content for youngsters while making it available to adults. Of course the reality is that even if TikTok gets banned, every 12 year old with a smartphone will still be able to easily go online and see hardcore pornography if he or she wants to. But even if someone wanted to, there would be no practical way to prevent minors from viewing pornography. In a war on porn, porn would win easily and decisively even more than drugs have won the war on drugs. On the other hand, it is relatively easy to ban a specific company like TikTok, which has been widely pilloried because "won't somebody please think of the children" and is run by a widely disliked country.

even though one might think that few things are more of a bedrock of liberty than the right to put whatever one wants into one's own body as long as it does not immediately and directly endanger others

I mean, who is “one” in this “one might think” construction? You might think that, but actually it appears that the vast majority of people have a very different conception of liberty than the maximalist conception that you are using here. Surely if there are “bedrock” elements of liberty, you could imagine at least a handful of rights that are more centrally important to liberty than the right to snort cocaine. Even if you think that’s a super important one, I would think that you would recognize a number of other ones - freedom of speech, freedom of private property, freedom to vote, etc. - that are more crucial than… “freedom of ingestion”.

I mean, who is “one” in this “one might think” construction? You might think that, but actually it appears that the vast majority of people have a very different conception of liberty than the maximalist conception that you are using here.

Not really. The truth is that, by and large, Americans don't actually care about liberty as a goal in and of itself. If you were to press a normie who doesn't think cocaine should be legal, you could pretty easily get them to admit that it would increase liberty to let people consume cocaine. They just care more about "cocaine is bad" than they do liberty.

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