[boredpeter]

Noam Chomsky argues the United States is a leading terrorist state. Does that mean TikTok is going to take down anything related to US foreign policy?

Are regular people not allowed to read or share content created by anyone the US government doesn’t like? Are people not allowed to form their own opinions?

What a joke. The “free” democratic west where communication is limited by a handful of large corporate interests and a murderous government that pressures them to censor content they don’t like.

TikTok may be owned by a Chinese company but there is no doubt in my mind they are being pressured by US authorities to control what is disseminated on their platform. I don’t think congress just forgot about wanting to ban TikTok, I think it’s likely they were able to rein in control of the platform.

What Osama Bin Laden did in 2001 isn’t justifiable but neither is decades of US interventionist foreign policy that has left millions of innocent people dead or living in poverty and continues to the present day.

[scarmig]

The idea that China is hoping for some Islamist radical campaign against the USA is misplaced. China fundamentally wants order within its borders (defined as China defines them), and terrorism against any major state actor doesn't align with its goals. Its vision of a new world order is a collection of states dividing the world into spheres of influence, without individualistic activism, violent or otherwise, disrupting state power within those spheres. More likely than not, the US didn't even need to request anything of TikTok to get this censorship: it arose organically.

[Terr_]

> China fundamentally wants order within its borders

Aside, I have a pet theory involving how the game Battlefield 4 (2013) was banned in China. The plot does not depict China as some inherently Anti-Freedom Giant Evil Empire, but I think that--in the eyes of Chinese censors--it did something even worse: It suggested that there were cracks in the empire, that it was even possible for a rogue Chinese admiral to (in the then-future year 2020) stage a credible coup against the Chinese establishment.

[scarmig]

I didn't follow that at all, but it seems plausible to me. "China is an evil empire hellbent on world domination" can reasonably be written off as shallow propaganda by a foreign adversary; "China is a fragile coalition of different groups that could easily shatter under stress" is far more dangerous to the CCP's ideology of a unified state, people, and most importantly party to lead them. The former seems like nonsense to anyone who has lived in China, while the latter resonates. The latter also has the shadow of history cast over it: the greatest threats to China have usually been internal division and discord, not external threats.

[lp0_on_fire]

Chomsky argues many things but the only things you should take from him without a whole tablespoon of salt has to do with linguistics. Certainly not geopolitics.

[defrost]

I first read Chomsky in the '80s for his work on grammer, I'm not sold (nor are others) on his ideas of universal grammer or innate syntactic knowledge.

Contrariwise his book later that decade Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media seems to be pretty much bang on the money outlining propaganda as an emergent behaviour that doesn't require an excess of particular directed pressure to come about.

[shove]

Except for the incredibly inconvenient and annoying coincidence that he happens to be right in his critiques of US foreign policy most of the time.

[mistermann]

ITT: humans who agree with their own opinions. Wow, how rare!

[alphanullmeric]

TikTok is a private company and your use of their service is not a right.

[mistermann]

Similarly, the airspeed of a European swallow is roughly 20.1 miles per hour.

[boredpeter]

My criticism of there being a few corporate gatekeepers of communication that are bullied by the government to censor content it doesn’t like is valid. You’re free to believe whatever neocon libertarian nonsense you wish.

[abracadaniel]

And what if the corporate gatekeepers censor themselves due to market forces instead? Like advertisers threatening to pull funding because they don’t think it’s a good look for them.

[krapp]

Outside of coercion from government, self-censorship is just an expression of personal liberty and freedom of association, isn't it?

You can't believe in free speech and also believe platforms should be forced to publish speech they don't want, or advertisers to associate themselves with it.

[peyton]

Do you believe Osama bin Laden has the right to kill civilians, as he claims in his letter?

[boredpeter]

I believe that in a free democratic society people should be allowed to read a letter written by an Islamic fundamentalist who orchestrated the largest terrorist attack against the United States.

I believe people should be allowed to form their own opinions about his motives beyond what US government propagandists want the US public to believe.

Contrary to public belief, I don’t think they did it because they hate our freedom. And I think if you do believe that and you also see no problem with platform after platform trying to scrub the document from public view then you’ve got your head on backwards.

[flashback2199]

I think most would agree that writing shouldn't get banned like 1984 style, but tiktok picks and chooses random videos to shove in people's faces to watch, so it's not like users would have looked up this letter and were prevented from reading it, it sounds like they're trying to prevent videos about it from being shoved in people's faces who weren't looking for it, it's a bit different don't you think?

[flextheruler]

People aren’t allowed to read something because it isn’t on TikTok is certainly not a take I’d expect to hear from someone rallying against America.

Typically that’s a right wing conservative argument that Trump and Fox News parrot about Alex Jones and what not.

[alphanullmeric]

I don’t support any government bullying of private companies, although I’m sure any level of consistency would be unfamiliar to people like you.

Should TikTok be allowed to control what goes onto their service? That’s a yes or no question.

[shove]

The government bullying left-leaning foreign governments is chill though, right guys?

[alphanullmeric]

No. The US government should stay out of other countries business’. They should even stay out of NATO. But again, I’m sure you don’t have that level of consistency.

[shove]

I’m an anarchist. The US government shouldn’t exist in the first place.

[boredpeter]

[flagged]

[alphanullmeric]

Oh this is hilarious. Not only do you confirm that you wouldn't support them doing what they choose to with their service in the absence of government intervention, you would actively support the same government intervention you pretended to be against if it meant you could force them to do something you benefit from.

If you wanted to prove that consistency wasn't exclusive to me you've done a pretty poor job. Combing through someone's account to avoid a yes or no question is especially pathetic.

[dang]

Since we recently asked you to stop repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and you've since done it many times, I've banned this account.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[boredpeter]

Wow the world has nuances. Who would’ve thought?