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by lazyeye 595 days ago
I wonder if once any post goes up that is relevant China's interests, an email goes out from some department in the CCP govt, then hordes of Chinese advocates descend on the comments section, arguing, diverting, obsfucating, and muddying the waters so much that no sensible conclusion can ever be made.
1 comments
raydev 595 days ago
I've been here for years, I just constantly see a lot of talk of harms but no details of what the harms are and it's tiring.
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lazyeye 595 days ago
The harms are so obvious I am wondering why I am even discussing it. Obviously giving your primary geo-strategic competitor (with a history of propaganda) access at massive scale to shape opinion, promote discord, polarisation etc etc in the next generation of youth is a bad thing. Not to mention the harvesting of personal data at massive scale and who knows how that might be used in the context of an AI-driven future. You'd have to be ridiculously naive not to see that.
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raydev 595 days ago
> to shape opinion, promote discord, polarisation etc etc in the next generation of youth is a bad thing

I remain unconvinced that people aren't shaping their own opinions by continuing to pursue similar content to what they typically agree with already. And as we all know, at this current time TikTok's algo is indistinguishable from US competitors in the obvious way it buckets people into like-minded feeds + comments.

At minimum we should be consistent in what we claim is the bad behavior. If the algo is really the problem, start regulating all of them and do it now. To do otherwise is hypocrisy.

> who knows how that might be used in the context of an AI-driven future

I'm not sure we want to legislate and set rules based on a "who knows". If the outcome is bad you need to define that bad outcome.

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lazyeye 595 days ago
"I remain unconvinced that people aren't shaping their own opinions by continuing to pursue similar content to what they typically agree with already. And as we all know, at this current time TikTok's algo is indistinguishable from US competitors in the obvious way it buckets people into like-minded feeds + comments..."

You have not the slightest clue whether this is true or not.

Why does China block all foreign social media access within its own borders?

Wouldnt it be wonderful if we in the West could advocate for our own interests inside China the way the Chinese can participate in our conversations.

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