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Whenever I use TikTok, I feel extremely unclean afterwards. Even seeing the app icon or logo gives me a sort of fight-or-flight-esque feeling.

No idea why.
 
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TikTok will be banned because they are a business from China and China's government, by their law, has to have backdoor access to TikTok's servers. It is not being banned due to short-form videos training people to have short attention spans, right...
In which case listing issues with the video format itself isn’t all that relevant to the debate.

If data safety is the only motivation behind the legislation it would have been easy enough to mandate collected customer data be encrypted or anonymized in a way that makes it impossible for foreign companies to identify individual user data, like how Apple uses differential privacy. Instead, it’s mandating a sale which seems like it’s coming more from a place of wanting to remove competition to American tech companies. Similarly, Huawei was recently banned from buying Intel chips for their consumer laptops but not servers, which is very strange if the goal was enhancing national security.
 
In which case listing issues with the video format itself isn’t all that relevant to the debate.

If data safety is the only motivation behind the legislation it would have been easy enough to mandate collected customer data be encrypted or anonymized in a way that makes it impossible for foreign companies to identify individual user data, like how Apple uses differential privacy. Instead, it’s mandating a sale which seems like it’s coming more from a place of wanting to remove competition to American tech companies. Similarly, Huawei was recently banned from buying Intel chips for their consumer laptops but not servers, which is very strange if the goal was enhancing national security.
A company like TikTok won't anonymize user data with encryption because they most likely claim their 'algorithms' need specificity to tailor their services per user.

Removing competition is not a modern concept. All countries do it in some way. China can dump their excess capacity tech from their economy into Western economies and sell it cheaper...this destroys local competition. China banned iPhones from their government offices, is this getting rid of competition? Huawei's founder was originally a high ranking military officer. China's government chose Huawei to be one of its export stars. It goes on and on...
 
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A company like TikTok won't anonymize user data with encryption because they most likely claim their 'algorithms' need specificity to tailor their services per user.
They will if they want to operate in the states and it’s mandated, just like how they had to be GDPR compliant to be in Europe. Of course, if they don’t it would be a reasonable excuse to ban them based on this law. That’s not how legislators are going about this though.

Removing competition is not a modern concept. All countries do it in some way. China can dump their excess capacity tech from their economy into Western economies and sell it cheaper...this destroys local competition. China banned iPhones from their government offices, is this getting rid of competition? Huawei's founder was originally a high ranking military officer. China's government chose Huawei to be one of its export stars. It goes on and on...
I’m not saying the U.S. doesn’t have a right to remove foreign competition or protect the local economy. Every country can and should do as it sees fit when it comes to trade and commerce. I’m just pointing out that the reason given are rather dishonest in many of these cases when it comes to Chinese tech companies.
 
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They will if they want to operate in the states and it’s mandated, just like how they had to be GDPR compliant to be in Europe.


I’m not saying the U.S. doesn’t have a right to remove foreign competition or protect the local economy. Every country can and should do as it sees fit when it comes to trade and commerce. I’m just pointing out that the reason given are rather dishonest in many of these cases when it comes to Chinese tech companies.
You can assume it is about removing competition from a Chinese tech company in the US, that is one way to look at, or it's just the US government looking-out for the US because it is China and China's government is not a democracy, right. Relations between China's government and the West is not currently great, right.

You know the joke about the scorpion and the turtle. The scorpion asked the turtle to take it across the river safely and it promised it won't sting the turtle. The turtle took the scorpion across the river and the scorpion stung the turtle. The turtle said you promised you wouldn't sting me. The scorpion said I am after all a scorpion. It seems like the scorpion is China.
 
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You can assume it is about removing competition from a Chinese tech company in the US, that is one way to look at, or it's just the US government looking-out for the US because it is China and China's government is not a democracy, right. Relations between China's government and the West is not currently great, right.
I’m not disputing that relations with China is pretty tense at the moment, but using a politically motivated reason to resolve a trade dispute will harm the U.S. market in the long run. It will make capital from other countries with more neutral relations with the U.S. more hesitant about contributing into the U.S. economy. It would be a hard sell to invest in a market when any company can be forced to sell its assets or shut down operations based on a political whim and not resolved through normal channels for trade disputes. This systemic consistency and protection of property is one of the great competitive advantages of western markets, and now that’s being slowly eroded.
 
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Scrolling through short video after video really is for zombies. It teaches people to have really short attention spans. I would argue this short-form video crap makes people stupid.

People, on average, are already incredibly stupid. Tiktok and 'short' content, including stills on instagram and messages on X, are almost identical to sitting in front of an electronic poker machine. Lots of little dopamine hits that require user interaction.

Social media companies (and game companies like King) are effectively the new Vegas. The losses/costs might be smaller, but the user has zero chance of winning.
 
I hope they really can detect an AI generated video, what about the intro is real and the end is real, but in between is not, can they flag that.
Good move though, I think every video should have an AI generate tag.
 
While I agree with all of the issues of short-form videos, banning TikTok will do nothing to curb this. American users will just migrate to Youtube Shorts and Instagram which copies both TikTok's format and all of its problems.
But at least they won't shove anti-Western content down everyone's throat.
 
Woah! reverse the ban! TikTok is saved by AI! 😄, If only TikTok was killed off 5 years ago
 
Scrolling through short video after video really is for zombies. It teaches people to have really short attention spans. I would argue this short-form video crap makes people stupid.

Then there is the huge spread of misinformation because videos are so short you see only a tiny part of whatever it is...

Then there is the issue of all this user data feeding nefarious Chinese government AI algorithms to dream-up new ways to take advantage of democracies.
valid points. I have seen evidence that the algorithm can easily lead users into quite an insular bubble—I see the same two sides to it that I always see to social media: it can be a place where people become part of echo chambers and don’t intellectually/emotionally grow; it can be a place for finding friends one shares a common bond with, particularly if one’s real-life environment is isolating for whatever reason (though I don’t think a lot of genuine social interaction is happening on TikTok, it is massively parasocial).

misinformation—also valid. it manifests everywhere online and it’s all the easier for out-of-context moments/tidbits to go viral on TT.

I can’t say I buy into anything about TikTok feeding user data to the Chinese government. believe me, I’m no fan of Jinping’s rule—to that end, however, I think they have a billion other ways of spying on us that are easier for them. the concern surrounding this feels like yet another moral panic that the US government has seized on to distract us from how horrendously bad they are when it comes to modern-tech-privacy legislation in general. are we going to talk about any of the domestic companies that have been proven to spy on their massive customer base, only to get a slap on the wrist…? meanwhile, there’s been virtually no substantive proof of such data collection for TT that I’ve seen, and people are more concerned about it. I don’t get it—and I’m not someone who even uses the app, none of this is an attempt to ~defend my beloved shortform vids~ lmao. it just grinds my gears that our representatives want to act like this app is the worst thing to ever happen to society when they have faaaaar more important matters in this specific realm (internet privacy) to be dealing with, and they seem to be too old/uneducated to do anything effective.
 
It's also banned in India.
And isn't allowed in China.

And that's just two off the top of my head.
There are probably more.

But if you feel fine and dandy using a platform from an Authoritarian Government that turns a blind eye to slavery and organ harvesting.
You defend them all day long.

You really are the best person here.

I assume this brave moral stance means you don't use any platforms from the US too, right? Right?
 
why? a simple “why” can sound so ominous/adversarial online lol, not my goal, I’m genuinely curious about your thoughts
There are a whole lot of reasons but I will try to be as straightforward as possible:

1. Population deterioration; diminishes people's abilities and self control.
2. Population manipulation; can with the use of algorithms control people's thoughts and behavior.
3. Hurtful to a lot of people, more so than alcohol, drugs etc

⬆️ That's the three main dangers with TikTok ⬆️
 
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