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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.

What I don’t get about this who,e TikTok thing is why TikTok is worse than other versions of social media. Every accusation you can make about TikTok can be equally true of American owned social media platforms. TikTok gathers data, but so do Facebook, twitter, instagram, Snapchat, and Reddit. TikTok wastes time? gestures at the entire internet. TikTok is propaganda? What about Facebook pushing a genocide in Myanmar, or Twitter being the place used by trump to rile his base about election fraud? Or tumblr normalizing asking for pronouns? In short, there’s nothing, other than being owned by a Chinese company, that would set TikTok apart here.

And I find the whole thing insane because what needs to be addressed is bad behavior, not the ownership of the company. The spying, the time-sucking, the propaganda, these are the problems not being addressed. If the discussion were about any of the above, fine, we can at least have a discussion about what private companies are allowed to do with their platforms. What we have instead is government banning a single platform because China bad, and heavily criminalizing trying to use the “wrong” platforms used by the wrong countries and companies.

I think that TikTok being a social media is to some extent a red herring and it should be viewed more as a strategic risk. For instance since 2022 there is a ban on natural gas, coal and oil imports from Russia into USA. Other countries in EU went even farther as they realize that having foreign hostile government in control of strategic asset poses huge security risk. Another example is that of Huawei ban since 2012 to be part of telecommunication infrastructure for its known ties to Chinese military. Another and relevant example is the fact that according to rules of FCC, foreign government cannot hold license for US broadcast station. I see TikTok ban in this light.

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