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Trudeau government bans TikTok from operating in Canada

(www.cbc.ca)
747 points empressplay | 7 comments | 06 Nov 24 23:04 UTC | HN request time: 1.11s | source | bottom
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not2b ◴[07 Nov 24 00:01 UTC] No.42071538[source]▶
Instead of the laser focus on TikTok as a threat, it would be better for the US and Canada to have real data protection laws that would apply equally to TikTok, Meta, Google, Apple, and X. What the EU has done is far from perfect but it bans the worst practices. The Chinese can buy all of the information they want on Americans and Canadians from ad brokers, who will happily sell them everything they need to track individuals' locations.

Perhaps the way to get anti-regulation politicians on board with this is for someone to do what was done to Robert Bork and legally disclose lots of personal info on members of Congress/Parliament, obtained from data brokers and de-anonymized.

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imgabe ◴[07 Nov 24 00:03 UTC] No.42071557[source]▶
It is not about the data. It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that.

Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish.

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wruza ◴[07 Nov 24 00:21 UTC] No.42071716[source]▶
It’s your people who decide to see it, not a foreign govt. Chinese media like cnn and nyt exist, no need to imagine either that or the situation where China buys cnn and nyt and gosh now you have to watch their propaganda.

The essence is, by denying agency of your country’s users, you deny the whole set of ideas it bases on. If that’s a natural vulnerability of the ideology, addressing it by banning media is a patch over a bleeding wound.

Canadian teens will simply learn about VPN, like they always do in other countries which ban internet resources. Not a single one of them will leave tiktok.

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gruez ◴[07 Nov 24 00:41 UTC] No.42071896[source]▶
>It’s your people who decide to see it, not a foreign govt

The threat is that it silently engages in manipulation, rather than something like RT or New York Times where the bias is well known ahead of time.

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aprilthird2021 ◴[07 Nov 24 05:05 UTC] No.42073579[source]▶
But it's manipulation by showing Americans stuff other Americans are saying. If Americans want to see that, they can. If they didn't want to, it wouldn't be popular. And why is the government allowed to restrict popular narrative sharing between Americans?
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lukan ◴[07 Nov 24 06:56 UTC] No.42074186[source]▶
"But it's manipulation by showing Americans stuff other Americans are saying. "

I do not consume TikTok, but I believe it works international?

Also I don't see the point, because there are americans saying, we should be friends with communist china and become like them. By giving those ideas more room - whenever they want, they can shape the discourse. Shape what people think what the majority thinks. (Most don't actually think much themself, but try to figure out, how to think like the group - they are the targets and their vote counts the same)

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1. aprilthird2021 ◴[07 Nov 24 13:58 UTC] No.42076677[source]▶
> Also I don't see the point, because there are americans saying, we should be friends with communist china and become like them. By giving those ideas more room - whenever they want, they can shape the discourse.

That's called free speech. Horrible, terrible ideas are given room, and we trust people to figure it out. Hell, many many Americans became vaccine skeptics because they were drawn into RFK talking points. That's dangerous too, but free speech is more important than forcing everyone to be good or have good, safe opinions

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2. lukan ◴[07 Nov 24 17:37 UTC] No.42078896[source]▶
No, free speech is when everyone in the same room has the same right to speak.

This is creating the illusion of a free speech, where people think they can listen to the other opinions, but in reality they only get to see a distorted part of it. But if you like that, I won't support banning that.

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3. aprilthird2021 ◴[07 Nov 24 18:25 UTC] No.42079352[source]▶
But what you are describing is basically a magazine. There are editors who decide what is and isn't published. It's still free speech to be able to edit and publish a magazine full of whatever you want, and to present it as providing diverse opinions even if it does not
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4. lukan ◴[07 Nov 24 18:47 UTC] No.42079580{3}[source]▶
It is - and I think if the Chinese government would have a magazine with the same dominant market position amd reach, we would have the same discussion.
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5. aprilthird2021 ◴[08 Nov 24 15:18 UTC] No.42087490{4}[source]▶
No, we wouldn't. In America, foreign-controlled news and media are allowed to be consumed by the public. It's a fundamental aspect of the right to free speech
6. juliuskiesian ◴[09 Nov 24 21:13 UTC] No.42096929[source]▶
Free speech by your definition does not exist anywhere. The editors of New York Times, CNN etc do not have the "same" right to speak as an average citizen. So the free speech you have experienced so far is nothing more than an illusion.
7. juliuskiesian ◴[09 Nov 24 21:32 UTC] No.42097015[source]▶
Nobody has the full view of reality. It's always projected through a lens colored by feelings, emotions, upbringing, education, environment etc. When you hate something, it's not always because have a fully rational motive to hate, but often the things your have experienced, you have read and heard, leads you into that trajectory without you even realizing it. Same goes for love. You hate TikTok and millions of your fellow Americans love TikTok, does that mean you are in a higher position of enlightenment and more holistic view of the universe? I don't think so.

It's also pure nonsense that TikTok is somehow "misleading" the American youth. It's basically a recommendation engine. And what's the job of a recommendation engine? To give you whatever content you might be interested in. Just go to youtube and start clicking all the garbage content (if they are not censored already), you will end up with a lot of garbage in your feed. Because if you spend a lot of time watching garbage, the algorithm will think you like garbage and will push garbage onto your frontpage.