TikTok users can't upload anti-ICE videos. The company blames tech issues

There is also a TV series based on it (on Amazon Prime I think), but as usually, it's not as good as the book.

And by the way the covid "fact checking" wasn't based on "truth", it was at political request of White House as Zuck later said, and he did later called the FB fact checking a censorship when disbanding it.

Be it flying monkeys, boot lickers, or the abuser themselves. It’s a thought terminating cliche that's designed to stop to critical thinking and minimize the act and reduce the response, making it seem though it were a forgivable mistake instead of a deliberate action.

Because as you said: regardless of malice or stupidity, the harm is real.

Uno reverse doesn't work here.

[does not offer evidence]

> Yet, I can assure you ... they were much more satisfied with life than the vast majority of working class and unhoused americans today

How do you know this? How is this convincing to this audience?

> no amount of material wealth can compensate for severe mental illness

Are you asserting that mental illness occurred at lower rates in the past?

> I am certain you will be shocked at their extreme poverty and general hopefulness

There is no shortage of writing from the Great Depression expressing great hopelessness. The generation was popularly called the Lost Generation for decades by writers of the time.

We cannot conclusively know the overall happiness level of humanity at any time before the Industrial Revolution. But we can use general proxies, such as starvation rates, violent deaths, and child mortality. Those metrics have, by all knowable measures, improved by an order of magnitude after the Industrial Revolution when compared to all previous history.

As long as person's basic needs are met and they are covered in the case of an emergency (for example, not going bankrupt because of cancer) they can be happy.

The barrier though is other people who make you unhappy. Your friends or family can cause you to compare your wealth to others.

The news and politicians can make you feel unhappy by telling you things are worse than they used to be and/or theyre getting worse.

Media can show you things you don't have and worse make you feel as though you would be happier, more excited, or more relaxed if you had these things.

Even though it's possible to ignore this, it's extremely difficult. We aren't as strong as we think when it comes to negative emotions.

/s

Nowadays however, we have the USA rounding up non-white people and putting them in brutal concentration camps (it's not a prison if there's no due process) whilst openly murdering opposition in the streets whilst Germany is acting as a trusted and stable partner. It's not the country, but the monsters that may be put in charge by a misled population.

It used to be that anybody could post anything on the Internet. If it was something illegal sooner or later the state FBI/a Judge/Whatever would come for you, but it was a matter between you and the law. Your Internet provider, your hosting provider, etc. couldn't care less because they were not involved in your activity, in the same way that the post office is not to blame if you send an explosive letter using their service.

That's Section 230. While it's an USA-specific law it was in the spirit followed also in most of the other Western countries.

My reframe was, "If you're a Dem, don't you think Brockman should donate $25M to Trump, because I'm told I have to vote Dem if I don't like GOP, because Dems are the lesser evil, thus, Dems believe it is okay to support evil if it is in your self-interest?"

Assuming that, then turning back to theory, "Lesser evil" is a constraint on imperfect choices, not a moral voucher that turns any tactic into virtue. If you can justify writing a $25M check to someone you think is dangerous because it helps your side, then your issue was never "good vs. bad" - it was "my team wins," and you’re just shopping for a cleaner-sounding label.

I reject the premise that whatever this guy wants from Trump is a moral good greater than the harm that is being wrought. It is almost certainly not about pushing the common good, but ensuring that his wealth continues to grow unabated by government interference.

I find this motivation especially despicable, because he has "donates $25m to political campaigns" level wealth already. He could quit Open AI today and live out an early retirement in unparalleled luxury. But that isn't enough for him. He has to keep pouring gasoline on the dumpster fire that is American politics, leaving the rest of us to suffer, because he doesn't think hundreds of millions of dollars is enough for one person.

Americans who are currently protesting should consider if the apparatus will be subtly manipulating their environment not just in the next months or years but from now on with high quality data it will have perfectly categorized mined and will re-mine.

> Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic manipulation of information—including facts, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion, attitudes, and behaviors toward a specific cause, ideology, or agenda.

>With modern technology we may be creating systems that end up imprisoning our minds for generations with no escape

That has been the goal of authoritarians for a long time. Orwell's vision of it involved obliterating even the capacity to think or speak about anti-state themes.

There’s an enormous difference between driving slowly through a crowd of protestors with no injuries versus running over protesters with a tank.

if someone goes to your local walmart and buy stuff from them, is that considered as using soft power on walmart? LOL

I threw my computer off the balcony. I look at a web design business. "No fair!" I think to myself, "if only I had a computer I could have a web design business too!"

I smash the web designer's computer out of spite.

If I was the US blessed feed, let me have it. If I wasn't the Chinese maintained one, why not.

Or, even better, let me make my own! Or use one from an open source that I, the user, trusts.

Hell, EXPOSE THE ALGORITHMS. The simple fact that we can't see the weights, or measure inputs to outputs, means we are in total control of whomever currently holds the reins, and they can literally play God behind the scenes if they have control over enough eyeballs.

In any case, entirely Western oriented platforms also push brainrot to Western viewers, so I don't think there's any conspiracy so much as just cultural differences.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niang_pao

Don't need tiktok for that. Besides, a certain party prefers it that way.

It's less legitimate when you don't want a foreign power to be the ones who decide what people see on their own platforms. The US for example shouldn't dictate what US users see when they visit www.bbc.co.uk

The just US got mad because a Chinese owned/operated social media platform got massively popular and they just wanted the ability to control and censor it.

Commentators: What are we, some kind of Asians?

Oceania has always gotten tech tips from Eastasia.

An interesting thought I read a couple days ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/trump-carney-chin...:

> Finally, and most controversially, I suspect the same “if not America, then China” logic applies to political ordering as well. The United States under Trumpian conditions has allowed populism to come to power, bringing chaos and authoritarian behavior in its train. Recoil from that by all means — but recognize that it happened through democratic mechanisms, under freewheeling political conditions.

> Meanwhile, the modes through which Europe and Canada have sought to suppress populism involve harsh restrictions on speech, elite collusion and other expression of managerial illiberalism. And what is China’s dictatorship if not managerial illiberalism in full flower? When European elites talk about China as a potentially more stable partner than the whipsawing United States, when they talk admiringly about its environmental goals and technocratic capacity, they aren’t defending a liberal alternative to Trumpian populism. They are letting the magnet of Chinese power draw them away from their own democratic traditions.

Authoritarianism has been starting to become normalized because China and Russia are increasingly able to mess with our society in the same way our leaders always messed with theirs.

Ignoring the magnitude to draw a false equivalence is a great way to discredit your position. Neither party is perfect but only one of them is denying the full personhood of over half the population, having armed men threaten the public with lethal violence over constitutionally-protected activities, or saying that the executive should be able to direct private industries for profit. Debates about things like how much the government should ask private companies to enforce their terms of service are valid but it’s like arguing over a hangnail while you’re having a heart attack.

I guess in 90ies version of polymarket nobody would have had that result on their bingo sheet. But, well, they probably also didn't have "something like polymarket could exist in the free world" on those bingo cards, either...

I don't consider user-directed upvotes/downvotes/flags to be in the same category as company or state decided censorship.

but of course. the benchmark is minor influencer and HN darling naomi wu.

As well as racial profiling. There's not that much immigration to China in the first place, legal or otherwise.

"The forced US hosted tik-tok sale is all about hiding information from the US public that most people in the rest of the world have easy access to."

EU is coming.

https://newsroom.tiktok.com/cornerstonefinland?lang=en-150

I’m just saying that here in the US we are going to see some funkiness in suggested content soon. Because we hit different servers than you. Even if they are hosted on Oracle Cloud.

It’s really no different than a large org having two clouds that need data synchronized. AWS and Azure for example. Systems Design…

I’m not a TikTok user so I couldn’t recommend content for you to try.

1) A philosophical debate along the lines you've indicated here, how much is it worth to control the algorithm, and how much does that equate to controlling speech.

2) The allegation that current buyers bought it specifically to bring their ideology to the algorithm, however effective or valid you think that is (I think it just hastens TikTok becoming something for "old people").

Whether you or I think that's effective or not is up for debate, I also avoid social media, but OP made a statement about intentions.

(And, aside, the current intentions appear far more pointed and ideological than when it was owned by ByteDance as a lottery winner with a surprise overseas success, optimizing for youth engagement.)

But this complaint is pretty old, I think of Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. (Setting aside his Epstein connections for a moment) The way we do censorship is much less the methods of a traditional totalitarian state and more like the private sector policing what is acceptable discourse.

The post you were replying to stated:

> hiding information from the US public

They didn't say "Americans now don't have easy access to information" (your words). They said this sort of manipulation would be to hide information from the American public.

Many people in the American public only see news on TikTok. If information is suppressed within TikTok, it is hidden to them.

If TikTok stops showing content, can they find it some other way? Yes, if they know to look. It's not blocked or destroyed, but it's hidden.

Is that a problem? Yes. TikTok's dominance was and is a problem in and of itself. But that isn't an excuse to abuse its dominance for propaganda purposes.

As X has shown, these platforms are crucial to the information ecosystem, and their selective curation can warp the views of an entire population.

In the long run, they bought out some dying legacy media in CBS and social media has a short half-life. Nobody's saying they're geniuses but it's clear what they're trying to do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_CECOT#Broadcast_postpon...

I hope not because it’s bad and that’s really all that matters in this conversation. And nitpicking whether or not there are other avenues for information is completely besides the point. I don’t even really understand what point you’re trying to make. If you think this is bad, then say it’s bad and we shouldn’t be ok with it. Saying “I’m not saying it’s good” then muddying the waters reads like you’re trying to defend the action.

When it comes to the _younger generation_, I don't think it's an over-estimation; they don't read news sites at all.

Gordon Chang has been making this prediction for almost a quarter century. Will it happen before or after the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world??

That’s not what Romney said. His - and the wider establishment’s - concern is that unsanctioned content is allowed to be treated the same as any other content.

Anyone knows that TikTok simply tailors your feed to your interests & interactions. But even this is not acceptable when it comes to topics the establishment doesn’t want disseminated.

And if they had undeniable proof that TikTok was boosting/manipulating such content, why haven’t they revealed it now that TikTok US is under US control?

But it’s okay to not be concerned. Just don’t come crying when the book burning starts.

Now you wonder what these companies are doing to shape events, and the answer is that Tim Cook is attending a private showing of a PR project for the wife of the president premiering on a competing streaming network whilst people hold vigils for the people that the regime has murdered.

You'd do that I guess, right, if you saw something happening you thought was bad - you'd run straight into a legal fight that could bankrupt you? Nah, you're a tough guy on the internet! Nothing scares you!

But I'm talking about political tools. Breaking down the norms about how power is supposed to be wielded. Concentrating more and more power in the executive because Congress would rather be powerless and blameless than have responsibility.

For example, giving the President the power to set tariffs was done with the understanding that the President would use this power wisely in an actual national emergency. That created a political tool. Now we have a deeply unwise President who declared a nonsense national emergency and is playing havoc with trade using this tool. If the tool hadn't been created then I don't think we'd have that problem. I doubt Congress would be willing to pass sweeping emergency powers in an environment where there is no emergency and no need for those powers. And there was never a need for those powers. Tariffs don't need to be enacted so rapidly that they can't wait for Congress to convene and pass a law.

In this case, we've created a political tool giving the President broad power to interfere in a specific private business. It's no surprise if that tool gets abused, and it was completely unnecessary to begin with.

So I'd phrase it as: "Good guys shouldn't make political tools that are far more powerful than they need to be assuming that they'll be used wisely, because bad guys will happily use the full power of those tools."

If you introduce friction with something that millions or more use, a few % peeling off or missing things means tens of thousands of people are impacted. And tiktok has a hell of a lot more than a million users.

I still don’t get what you’re trying to say or why you’re downplaying this.

This is why the administration has gone out of its way to try to get Kimmel and Colbert off the air, why it has commandeered CBS and tried to kill 60 minutes pieces critical of the administration, why it violated the law in order to keep TikTok (already fervently pro-Trump) up and running, and why allies of the administration have been put in charge of TikTok after the transition. It's why Bezos is slowly strangling the Washington Post, why Patrick Soon-Shiong is doing the same to the LA Times, and why the administration is putting their thumb on the scale for Paramount, rather than Netflix, to buy Warner Brothers Discovery (which owns CNN). It's why Musk bought Twitter. It's why they blatantly lie in their press conferences and statements to the media about how the ICE killings happened.

If you walked into a Turning-Point USA meeting in a high school, do you think the kids attending that meeting could accurately tell you what ICE has been doing? I don't.

I feel like this is basically the case in everything.

* A lot of people don't read the article before commenting.

* Nobody reads TOS for things.

* Most people don't read academic papers.

* MIT or BSD license is easy, but how many people here have actually read the whole GPL, Apache, or Mozilla licenses.

* Voter turnout in Municipal elections here in Ontario is incredibly low.

There is too much information out there for one person. Everything is done with value judgements.

To me, the system of codified law and courts makes intuitive sense, and most people misunderstand or abuse the system. But other people's intuitive understanding of the law as you mentioned is a much easier way to understand and actually IS a rough approximation of what the system does.

In an ideal world, when this happen, it should be anarchy until a new set of government, that uphold the law equal to everybody, is enacted. But we don't live in ideal world.

It would be orders of magnitude more productive if we did that.

What should happen is that everyone who is flagrantly violating the law and looting the federal govt right now should be quickly and aggressively prosecuted. Real concrete legislative reforms should be enacted to limit future corruption and dangerous adventurism by demented leaders.

I expect none of that to actually happen.

Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me

There's a degree of that. But really it's learned behavior; MAGA literally sacked the Capitol in a violent insurrection and Democrats managed to botch the response to that. The only reason we're talking about future malfeasance is because Democrats didn't punish past malfeasance, thereby shifting the Overton window. And of course this goes back further than Jan 6 -- Trump might actually get a pardon from the next Democratic president if history repeats.

Let's say the administration require physical in-person voting due to supposedly mail-in vote fraud and similar in past elections, like when Trump lost.

Then they place a bunch of ICE agents outside of each voting location, checking any immigrants and others they've declared unwanted that are about to vote. Suddenly a lot of democratic voters no longer feel safe voting.

Will the democrats still win?

It's not about whether the US deports criminals. It's about how we go about doing it.

Obama even gave Tom Homan a medal for his work.

This may be the source of disconnect. While it might seem like I am amused by suffering, this is explicitly not the case. I shudder at the thought that people would take my argument as meaning that.

All I am saying is: things exist after their original purpose has been served ( or not served ). But those things continue to exist, because we, as a species, can't seem to help ourselves.

That weird drive within us is what I would call bemusing ( and not amusing ).

Why would that be a given? If we remove tiktok and replace it with anything else, that replaced influence does not automatically negate my will? Case in point, when I call my mother to talk a new car purchase, does her disliking my choice automatically mean I either influenced and therefore have no will?

I am not certain you considered edge cases here.