I was gonna avoid this, but after watching a secular talk video on it, i feel...mixed.
On the one hand, I like to see myself as a free speech absolutist. I personally like to believe that people have a right to say...whatever, within reason, and that it's protected, and should be allowed.
But here's the thing about tiktok. It's a chinese company. Its algorithms are apparently feeding the young people who watch it extremist content, and they're kinda amplifying the whole genocide in gaza thing.
I mean, I believe AMERICANS should have a right to free speech and that right is absolute, but when you have a CHINESE company, using algorithms to promote anti American and anti west content to influence public opinion, that is an issue. Keep in mind, these social media companies arent always unbiased with what content is allowed and what isnt allowed. I kinda wish they were, but they do tend to put their finger on the scale in terms of allowing and disallowing certain content. Since 2016 for example, a lot of american social media networks kinda went in the opposite direction of cracking down on certain political speech, potentially writing it off as "russian propaganda." When the anti vaccine nutters were going full force, they tried to suppress discussion on that stuff too. So american networks do try to feed people certain narratives and dissuade certain "extremist content" on their platforms, while this chinese company is accused of amplifying it.
And I've been noticing lately. Maybe part of the reason why im not going along with the far left is because countries like russia and china pushing narratives ARE actually influencing those guys more than I thought. I know I kinda waved off such ideas in 2016 and its aftermath primarily because it seemed like the DNC wasnt really willing to admit their own failures so they wanted to say that everything they didnt like was russian propaganda. But then when I watch cornel west leave the greens because he couldnt say positive things about navalny, I really have to wonder if there is some validity to the greens being in bed with russia. or when the republicans are resisting ukraine funding. I mean they used to be the ones foaming at the mouth over russia now since trump its suddenly, no let's let ukraine do anything they want, while tucker carlson goes over to russia and brown noses putin? And then you got the left going apecrap over foreign policy and devolving into support for literal marxism and leftism, with tiktok being a source of the info causing this shift? I do have to wonder if everyone in these media echo chambers is in their own little "plato's cave" listening as someone, whether it be american propagandists, or foreign ones, propping up certain narratives. Me, I tend to speak for myself. I criticized the democrats when I felt it was justified, I still do, but honestly, should we really let foreign agents manipulate our dialogues this much?
Again, I guess the thing for me comes down to, if american users genuinely felt this way and genuinely made this content, and a foreign company werent explicitly promoting this kind of stuff, I would have FAR LESS of a problem here. Like if some americans decide to give their genuine thoughts, and it was hosted on an american company, and someone happened to see it in an environment with unbiased algorithms, and that just happened to be what conclusions people came to, that would be one thing. But if you do got foreign agents explicitly using certain networks that they control to radicalize americans? That does seem to be a problem.
That said, should we BAN tiktok? I'm kind of leery on the precedent that would set. i do see where the people are coming from when making this case, i dont really like the idea of banning content or platforms simply because it doesnt promote certain narratives. Because who watches the watchmen? If you censor a point of view, you are just becoming authoritarian and trying to shut down people who you dont agree with.
What we need more of are more intelligent and educated people, like me, who can think freely, make up their own minds, and understand what is and isn't BS. Rather than everything being a war of propaganda and narratives coming from oligarchs where the discussion eventually comes down to our oligarchs with our propaganda vs their oligarchs and their propaganda, which is how I felt the democratic party was shaping the narrative in 2016, like, dont listen to those russians telling you we're bad. Listen to us telling you that we're good and russia is actually bad. No, that's not a real free speech environment. That's just wanting certain american propaganda narratives to win. Maybe we should instead have people educated enough to know when they're being BSed by either side, and who are actually educated to make up their own darned minds. The problem is the american propagandists wont want that, because they wanna be the ones filling peoples' heads with BS, and they themselves dont want people thinking for themselves. They want people just mindlessly believing what they think.
I'm not gonna say, like Kyle did in this video, that tiktok is great and actually the ones telling you what's going on. No, that's a normative statement from a leftist who has lost the plot. And kyle HAS lost the plot lately. Let's face it. I might like kyle on many things, but his gaza coverage is garbage. He might not be russian or chinese, but he is promoting a lot of pro gaza and anti israel nonsense i just dont agree with. And his fan base is more radical than he is.
At the same time, I'm not gonna say tiktok should be BANNED outright. Because it really does sound like a case of "we dont want people to hear THEIR propaganda, only OUR propaganda", when in reality, we want freedom of speech where people can entertain and engage with all points of view, and ideally have a citizenry capable of knowing when it's being taken for a ride. So....while I understand where the establishment is coming from on tiktok, and i agree it's an issue, I just can't, in good faith, call for a ban here. I think it represents a dangerous slippery slope as far as free speech goes, and I prefer to be as absolutist in possible.
Still, I wouldnt mind people calling a spade a spade and recognizing that tiktok is, indeed a chinese company and that they are, in fact, peddling certain narratives that may lead to a certain anti american and anti west perspective. And that viewer discretion is advised.
Like, you know how we have warning labels on covid misinformation these days? We should have warning labels on tiktok. I think that's a good compromise. "hey, this company is owned by the chinese, dont trust everything you see on it"....yeah. i think that's better. Allow people to access it as their own risk but inform them of the issues with it. We need more of that in general. I aint sponsored by like ground news or anything, but I have seen people promoting it as this thing that basically allows people to fact check and detect bias in real time. Maybe we should have more stuff like that. Just saying.
Again, the answer is almost never CENSORSHIP. The answer is EDUCATION. And that's my stance on this.
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